Muscle Memory
by PeekabooFang
Summary: Joker knew who he was before Batman: a villain, right from the start. So...what's Jeannie doing here? She doesn't really exist, does she? AKA When your favorite Batman media is BTAS, yet you love Jeannie from the comics and you also love Rick and Morty, then this is the dark semi-crossover you might come up with. Harley x Ivy get thrown in the mix, too!
1. Chapter 1

***From the notes of Dr. Ricardo Sanchez, Ace Chemicals, November 18th, 1800 hours:***

**The multiverse is real. I have discovered the chemical compound that can reveal each permutation of our lives to us. We must never use it but for emergency, and what kind of emergency might require a portal to another timeline is unclear to me as of yet.** _[ -NOTE: Wow, that's fucking brilliant, Rick. Why not stop being a chickenshit and admit you only discovered the compound because you could, not to benefit mankind or any of that crap? R.S.]_

**What I do know is that playing with this formula is like playing with fire. You can open a portal to a new life, a better life, but it comes at a cost too great to pay.** _[-NOTE: Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe you can run amok, do whatever you feel like, then jump to another timeline and get away with it forever. Why not? Fuck consequences. R.S.]_

**Imagine taking a test full of multiple choice questions you never studied for, with choices you never expected. You begin randomly filling them in. Every question you answer takes you either further to a passing grade or to a failing one. Sometimes all it takes is one wrong call, one bad choice to make that grade.**

**...well, okay, that's the same for any kind of written test, but bear with me here.** _[-NOTE: Really beautiful stuff you've got here, Rick. Just gorgeous. R.S.]_

**However, unlike a test where we are in charge of the answers, sometimes fate fills in the answers for us.** _[-NOTE: Oooooh, spooky-ooky! Get a grip, Sanchez. R.S.]_

* * *

Jeannie very slowly, very methodically finished folding her towels.

_You'll have to do much more quickly than that for the cells in Arkham,_ she reminded herself.

But she was at that critical moment – her foot dangling off the tightrope – where the standard first-day-of-work anxiety transformed into true chaos. She was threatening to topple into the Blur again.

So she couldn't rush anything. Rush pushed you into the Blur headlong.

After all, she'd been rushing to get the filing done when -

As she patted the last towel gently into her suitcase, she closed her eyes and breathed in.

"_If the nightingales could sing like you, they'd sing much sweeter than they do..."_

After her first Big Break, the first time she'd really given counseling her all (not that she'd had much choice in the matter), she'd been quick to say she knew that retreating into a fantasy was Wrong. That it kept her from facing her Fears, her Memories, from achieving that Golden Goal of Closure. She knew she had to live in the moment. She needed to –

But Dr. McTavish had instead told her that wasn't necessarily the case. Actually, this retreat could be a lifeboat in the sea of chaos Jeannie often found herself adrift in. When the threat of the Blur came back, and threatened to swallow up Jeannie whole, any comforting image was Good. Visualizing a place of safety, of joy, could anchor her. Could remind her that in this sick, fucked up world, where the Blur was almost an enticing alternative, that there were times the chaos could coalesce into something pleasant and safe.

And so as Jeannie clicked shut her worn suitcase, she wasn't about to leave the small but homey room that had been her sanctuary for the past three years and enter the sort of building where the Blur was born. Instead she was onboard an ocean liner, a stowaway with the Marx Brothers, and she was trying to convince the customs officers that she was Maurice Chevalier.

"_For you brought a new kind of love to me..."_

She was snapped back to worrisome reality by a soft knock on the door. Jeannie turned and swallowed.

Dr. Leland had actually shown up. Not Dr. Davitz yet, not one of the nurses – though they were coming. Right now it was Dr. Leland.

Tears stung Jeannie's eyes. She didn't know if it was because she was touched by someone so important seeing her off personally, or if it was out of terror that someone so important was here to see her off to Arkham.

_This is Serious,_ she thought as Leland entered the room. _A serious thing I am doing._

A little laugh rang in the back of her mind.

But Dr. Leland was head of Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane (where Jeannie was going) and chief consultant at Thomas Wayne Memorial Psychiatric Hospital (where Jeannie was going, going, almost gone from) for a reason. There was a key something in Dr. Leland's serenely lovely face that always appealed to Jeannie. It was an uninterrupted, offhand acceptance. No coy head tilt, no melting features dripping with put-on compassion, no brisk committal to a Tough Love persona.

If Dr. Leland read Jeannie's anxiety and desperation on her face, she didn't show it. The same calm sunset as always rest in her face as she approached her.

"Well, Jeannie. You look just about all set."

There was, however, a quick flicker in Leland's eyes as she looked her over – something that caused not a little bit of resentment in Jeannie.

_Yes, I showered. I'm showered and neat and clean so just shove that expression -_

She blinked hard, forcing that thought back. _After all, there's a reason why she's checking. A history there, Jeannie girl._

A response now, she needed to acknowledge that Dr. Leland had spoken. _You're talking now, remember? You're in a talking phase._

Yet all she could give in the midst of her anxiety was a little jerk of her grimacing lips.

Again, no look of concern from Leland. Calm, light hands on her shoulders. When the doctor spoke, her voice was low. "I'm sure it's no secret that all the doctors here and at Arkham are not pleased with the board's decision. But believe it or not, this is a good thing for you."

A quick press to each shoulder.

Another quirk of Jeannie's lips, this time a little wider. _Almost a smile?_

"You have shown remarkable progress. That's the reason you and only two other patients have been selected for the first stages of this program. You are a strong person, Jeannie, don't forget that." _Good old fashioned, meaningless pep talk. Bullshit soup for the soul. No, shut up. She is kind, she means it...well, she wants me to _think _she means it, so it's important I give that a go._

Dr. Leland continued. "I'm aware the staff has already given you and the rest the run-down about the rules and regulations at Arkham. Don't engage too much with the inmates, never go to a confined place alone, all of that. No, I just wanted to let you know that we will all look out for you there." A slight wrinkling at the corner of her eyes. "We're all here for you, Jeannie."

More tears stung Jeannie's eyes. She remembered kind hands and words like this. She was a little girl, and Grandma and Grandpa were dancing to Annette Hanshaw on the phonograph, and the room was so warm and the lamp was dim and Patty was rolled over on her back, her paws hooked like a performing seal's as Jeannie scratched her belly. Sally and Andy were playing board games in the kitchen, making gagging noises as Gran and Gramps cooed at each other.

"_That's all."_

Before other things came intruding on this storybook memory, she somehow found her voice. "I know, Dr. Leland. Thank you."

Dr. Davitz and two nurses appeared behind Dr. Leland. Reality like a cold hard thud came down on Jeannie.

"I guess it's time."

Trying to imitate a hard-knock, plucky Jean Arthur type, Jeannie picked up her suitcase and straightened, smiled for real this time. It felt odd on her face. "Welp, ready to go!"

_Ready to go._

* * *

A five of hearts, a three of clubs. _Hmm, we can do better than that._ Somewhere, somehow, so quick he didn't have to think about how he did it, he was pleased to add a six of hearts.

He laughed. His fellow players eyed him unsteadily. "Lookie here, folks!" He sang out. He slammed down the cards with more force than necessary. "No, your eyes do not deceive you. Twenty-one, friends!"

The Joker's laugh rocked the room and its inhabitants.

Hats, Ivy, and Dent all groaned in disbelief. "I smell chicanery afoot," from Tetch.

"I smell a dirty rat," Dent ground out through gritted teeth, his fingernails leaving marks on the coin squeezed tightly in his hand.

However, Joker's favorite gal pal Harley clapped and whistled. "Good one, Puddin'! Here's to twenty-one more!"

Joker pat her cheek with great magnanimity, he thought. "Thank you, Harl. Not quite sure what you mean by that, but I'm sure the sentiment is sincere."

"She probably means you have about twenty-one more trick cards hidden all over you," came the plant lady's slow drawl.

"Now, don't be a sore loser, Pam," Joker said, making a show of straightening his gloves. "That sort of attitude will make you positively wilt, my dear."

This looked to be a promising day. It was a nice sunny morning, birds were tweeting on the branches outside the barred bay window, and security was beautifully distracted by the incoming patients from the Thomas Wayne Loony-But-Not-Violent-Loony Bin, come to work their little outreach programs here at good ol' Arkham.

He and some of the more famous repeat offenders were gathered in Arkham's main rec room. They were waiting for Leland and the staff to arrive and sermonize them about giving the newbies space, peace, all of that sanctimonious rigmarole.

In other words, an absolute perfect morning for spreading mayhem and trauma! Yes, but how...?

As he leaned back in his chair, happily soaking in the grumblings of his vanquished fellow players, he thought what a lovely day it promised to be indeed.

* * *

First, there was a tour of the old schoolhouse, which would serve as a sort of dormitory for Jeannie and her fellow program selectees– Reggie, a stout, anxious schizophrenic man, and Inam, a quiet obsessive compulsive who kept mostly to himself.

The schoolhouse was about a mile away from the asylum, just on the edge of the Arkham property line. The classrooms were converted into bedrooms.

"Jeannie," Dr. Davitz said with a bright, chirpy note in their voice, "I know you're familiar with your new home, seeing as you provided such excellent assistance to Dr. Tang when this place was up and running. The kids loved her," they beamed to a continuously nodding Reggie and a clearly bored Inam, who was staring up blankly at the ceiling.

Jeannie replied with a small grin and a _hm_. As Dr. Davitz briefly gave them the history of the place, Jeannie ran her hand down the old chalkboard.

She missed being the teacher's assistant. She missed the kids. They'd been angry, wild, destructive, but more crucial to their character, hurt.

Her happiest memory since the world imploded was sitting out on the patio on a warm spring day with Kaylee and Dishon, finger painting. They were shaded by the branches of a cherry blossom tree.

_The trees_

_No._

She liked the warm squish of blue and red paint between her fingers making violet-purple on the page, and the breeze was quiet, just quiet. Kaylee wasn't speaking yet, but she had started to hum. A nice, sweet hum, as Dishon laughed softly to himself.

That was five years ago.

The school closed from budget cuts. The kids were dispersed to various other institutions, juvenile detention centers, foster homes.

They were gone.

After everyone had dropped off their belongings, Davitz said, "Well, folks, it's time. Let's give you all a tour of your new workplace."

* * *

A flash of panic in the rec room – quickly staunched, of course, then turned into wild glee in the Joker's heart– as a looming bat-shaped shadow encompassed the table of inmates.

Unlike his compatriots who gasped and gaped, Joker turned around slowly, languidly, his smile ever unchanging. "Bats! Here to act as master of ceremonies? Cut the ribbon to welcome in the new crop of workaday, gentle crazies into the Snakepit? Right sporting of you!"

Batman was still granite, as impenetrable as Everest. What a funny guy.

At last he spoke. "I'm here to ensure their safety, Joker."

"Ah, catch them if they slip on cleaning liquid, or stop them from drowning their sorrows with a bottle of bleach, eh? Good on you, Bats!"

He could have sworn those eyes narrowed behind their mask.

When Bats didn't take the bait, Joker made a dramatic show of gasping and slapping the back of his hand to his forehead. "You certainly don't think – _I_ – would dare molest them, do you, Bats?"

Like the over-eager little bitch in heat she was, Harley piped in. "Gosh, Bats! Have a little faith in our Mr. J, won't ya?" She wrapped an arm around Joker's shoulders. It made him want to hurl her across the room by her blond pigtails, or maybe throttle her. But no time for that at the moment.

"Not just you," Batman finally said. He scanned the rest of the room. "All of you. I know there's no love lost between any of us, but listen: you know what it's like to be ill. You know what it's like to be scared, lost. These people are trying to get better. These people mean you no harm. I'm taking this opportunity to entreat you all to give these people their space and peace of mind."

Many of the inmates shifted in their seats, discomfited by Batman speaking to them thus. They avoided each other's eyes. Dent grumbled and flicked his coin, Pam crossed her arms and slunk down in her chair, and Tetch coughed awkwardly and looked down at the Queen of Hearts that he twisted this way and that.

But not the Joker. He clapped. "Oh, that was beautiful, Bats. Of course, the fact they're at Thomas Wayne and coming here means the poor saps have already lost their peace of mind."

He was suddenly on his feet, his arm wrapped around Batman's shoulders much like Harley's had been around his moments before. "But be honest, Bats. A stalwart figure of virtue like you. You're not too fond of our new mayor, are you? Or how his budget cuts are why they're dragging these poor lost loony lambs into this den of bloodthirsty lions?"

Just the mention of Mayor Barry Brockbridge was enough to make Batman's posture stiffen even more, if that was possible. His moody silence confirmed that the Joker's insights into the machinations behind Arkham's new and enforced _outreach program_ matched the Dark Knight's assessment.

"That's what I thought," the Joker hissed.

His crimson smile and laugh were aimed directly at those two eye slots.

* * *

As Jeannie crossed the threshold into Arkham – _like a mad bride into her new home?_ – her breath stopped momentarily. Her ears rang.

She saw the cool white floors, the reception desk, heard the monotonous voice droning over the intercom. She saw a few inmates drugged and lolling in wheelchairs, the nurses briskly moving back and forth, some conferring with the orderlies. But she was looking through them as through a silk screen: everything distant and hazy.

It was the blur without a capital b. The sort of blur that often rocked her a little when she was nervous. It was manageable.  
But she hated the vibe of this place. Hated how she was reminded –

Dr. Davitz's bright hard voice cleared the blur and Jeannie was left only with a faint headache. "Ah, Morris! Good to see you again." Davitz shook the hand of a balding man in a white jumpsuit. "Here are your new charges!" Big smile as they indicated the three patients.

_Three wack-jobs here to help service the other wack-jobs, hidey-ho,_ Jeannie thought, stamping down the high-pitched giggle wracking her insides.

This man Morris looked them over disinterestedly, although Jeannie was relieved to see not unkindly. "Hiya, kids. Welcome to the funhouse. Okay, ready for a tour of the place? We'll start from the bottom on up."

He jerked his head toward the nearest corridor and casually ambled off, without waiting to see if they'd follow.

Jeannie unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief. She liked his style.

She smiled encouragement to Reggie, who was starting to shake. "It'll be okay, big guy." Reggie's eyes shot to hers, and she saw incomprehensible terror in them. She felt a stab of concern. She knew he hadn't worked since he was first diagnosed and sent to Thomas Memorial, fifteen years ago. Now, thanks to his bulky build and strength, he was going to help out in Maintenance. Inam, a certified genius, was going to help crunch numbers in the accounting department.

Jeannie, meanwhile, had neither strength nor genius. She did, however, have a pretty good work ethic when she was aware of the world around her. She would mostly be filling in for the custodians let go from Morris's team.

Reggie's pale blue eyes skidded away, their gaze following Morris and Davitz as they led the way into the first circle of Arkham-hell.

The three patients slowly proceeded behind them.

* * *

"Boo! Next act, Emcee! This one's so cheesy it's growing mold!" Joker smirked in satisfaction as Harley and a few other inmates laughed at his jape.

They were all gathered around Dr. Leland in uncomfortable fold-out chairs. Batman stood stoic and silent behind Leland, shoulder to shoulder with the four security officers.

Leland ignored the outburst and continued. "Until the new staff adjusts" – _staff, quaint way to put it,_Joker thought – "the schedule will change slightly to accommodate them. Lunch will start at 1:30 for A shift, and 2:00 for B. Time in the rec room will be cut down from an hour to forty-five minutes, but you can make up that time in the library or on the grounds."

Joker made a big show of yawning and sliding down in his seat.

And reached down into his pocket where the last trick card dwelt.

_The joker in the deck, whaddayaknow! A bit on the nose, but what can you do?_

He focused in on Bats, who was turning his head to keep track of everyone's movements.

_Now's the time for a little fun._

Quick as lightning, he was crouched up on the chair. "Sorry, doc!" He called out. "Hate to _rain on your parade!"_

With a glorious great swing, he sent the razor-sharp card flying into the sprinkler system.

A quick moment to enjoy all the _what the -'s_ and _heys_ of inmates and staff alike as the water rained down and the alarm blared.

With a laugh and a somersault, Joker catapulted over the seats. His momentum allowed him to push away Bats as the masked menace lunged for him.

He did wish he had time to truly take in Batman slipping on the wet floor, along with the red-faced security team.

_What a hoot! The Keystone Cops in action!_

Time was of the essence, however.

Joker let freedom fly from his throat as he laughed-laughed-laughed, running toward the door. He ignored the hurried shouts of security behind him, of Harley calling after him, desperately pleading for him to wait up.

This was all so beautifully improvised. Oh, he'd planned to cause some sort of mayhem to show the newcomers where they came in the pecking order. Batman's entrance and Leland's lecture, however, had given him the perfect opportunity before he could work out any minute details.

_Just goes to show, don't plan too much in this life. Everything eventually falls into place as it should._

He was just to the door when the world rocked and swayed.

Morris, a doctor, a couple nurses, and three other people entered.

They stood back, shocked, as the Joker zoomed toward them.

He skidded to a halt.

He looked at the only civilian female. She was a small thing, dressed in a beige overcoat too big for her, her hair pulled back in a checkered kerchief.

She looked back at him, frail, frightened, and -

And -

* * *

**From the notes of Dr. Ricardo Sanchez, cont.:**

"**If someone ingests the interdimensional chemicals, his consciousness becomes one with the subject's consciousness from every universe that led to this moment. He has lived every possibility, every random turn that led to ingesting the chemicals. These timelines can vary and differ wildly, but the subject lives all of them, simultaneously. **[ _-NOTE: If you had any ethical code, you'd point out this is all theoretical. R.S._]

**The severity of the effects on the psyche varies depending on how much of the chemical the subject ingests.**

**A mere sip is enough to make the subject confused about which timeline they are from, which of those memories is theirs – or if they are even real. They all happened, but since human psychology is based around the acceptance of the physical universe, they are unable to comprehend that all these different memories can be real, these different versions of themselves the real person. So, many will assume they've lost their minds.**[ _-NOTE: Thank God (if he existed) that you _don't _have an ethical code. This is some great conjecture, and it would really cramp my style if I had to verify everything. R.S.]_

**However, with enough treatment, it is theoretical **[ _-NOTE: there we go, I worked it in! R.S._ ]**the subject will eventually be able to recover, and truly understand what has actually taken place in their timeline, and what has not. Much depends on the nature of the person, as well. A strong mind can withstand quite a bit. A weaker mind might fall apart completely. And that chance only increases the more of the chemical is ingested. A sip can cause the universe to temporarily shift in their brain, but more than that- a submersion – it is doubtful the person can ever truly come back. Someone new, forged from the merged memories, will undoubtedly take over. The mental balance of such a new individual is surely unstable, but again: much depends on the subject's core character."**

* * *

The woman looked back at him, and it was her.

Her.

He knew her. She was a warm familiarity in his blood. She was

_Across the hall at Fort Joseph High. He was strutting from locker to locker, imitating Mr. Snodgrass's long stride and nasal voice. Hal was trying not to laugh as he yelled at him to cut it out. People all around him were giggling, but one laugh stood out from the rest: a machine gun HA-HA-HA-HA. It belonged to what must be a freshman girl huddled with some friends, a girl with such a big toothy smile. The kind of smile you feel like you've always known, intimately._

_A girl walking across the river outside the chemical plant. A bright smile of recognition, and he knew it was her –_

A laugh, a smile, a wedding, a death.

A ba...

"_Shut up and make me laugh, you big mook." A head buried in his shoulder as he obeyed and imitated Donald Duck having an orgasm and she laughedlaughedlaughedafdh_

Joker felt dizzy. She –

Why is she here?

Why?

**She's not supposed to be here.**

Jeannie watched as the Joker's face shifted from shock, to recognition, to horror, to a glee so wild and unrestrained it brought back that Terror.

His laugh was a high shriek, the screech of a vulture, filling the world.

The Joker fought a wave of nausea, and the world spun around her, her, the only stationary object in a spinning spinning world.

He sucked in a breath, siphoning it in, then out.

He looked at her in her oversized overcoat and her kerchief and her eyes were so lost, so despairing, so full of a sadness and grief they never had before. It tore at him -

Everything was red now and his head rang

His arm outstretched, finger pointing directly at her, laughing, laughing.

_What a wonderful cosmic punchline to some corny joke! I love it I live it I love it it's HILARIOUS -_

But now a white hot rage, a disorientation that he HATED -

His hands were on her shoulders, pushing her violently against the wall before any of her companions could react.

Her ears rang and she felt the Blur descending, but through it all she saw his red grimacing lips and heard him tell her in a voice beyond mad, beyond evil:

"_You're not. Supposed. To be here."_

His eyes went blank as his gaze moved downward, to her stomach.

_No bun in the oven._

Everything lost sound, lost color.

He fainted, collapsing at her feet.

Harley and Batman reached them at the same moment. The vigilante and the henchwoman looked down at him, then up at the woman standing in front of his prone form.

Jeannie stared right back, swaying on her feet.


	2. Chapter 2

"I've never seen him _quite_ like this," Leland said to the silent figure beside her.

She and Batman were both standing outside of Joker's cell, watching through the glass as the strait-jacketed clown rocked back and forth, stretched out on his cot: one second laughing hysterically, another the laugh shifting into yelps and shrieks. Throughout he seemed almost as if he were crying out in his sleep, but for the moments when his eyes would open. When they did, they were practically bulging: Batman could swear he saw the veins.

Then cackling once more, the Joker would close his eyes again, rocking back and forth.

"Did you see the way he pointed at Jeannie?"

Batman at last shifted his glance from Joker to Leland. "Jeannie? Is that the woman he" –

"Yes, that he was pointing at and pushed against the wall. One of the outreach patients from Thomas Wayne. Jeannie Janowski." She sighed. "Of course, I can't divulge specific details about her case, but being singled out by the Joker her first day here can't be doing her any favors. I could tell she was pretty nervous about coming to Arkham to begin with."

_Who wouldn't be_, Batman reflected. He thought back on the woman he saw, before security and Morris whisked her and the others away. She hadn't been very prepossessing. A small woman, delicately built – sickly, almost.

If, say, Joker were in the market for another henchwoman, Batman could think of better candidates when it came to physical strength and endurance.

_Even if he _were_ looking for another sidekick, why would he react like _this? This wasn't the suave seducer-sometime-wounded lamb routine he'd pulled on Harley when she was his psychiatrist. This wasn't the wise paternal facade he put on to reel in other henchmen, usually the bigger, stronger, more violent patients here at Arkham.

No, this was something different altogether.

"She and the others are staying at the old schoolhouse, right?"

Leland's voice was wary. "Batman..."

"I understand they're all in a sensitive place right now, and ordinarily I wouldn't disturb them. I'm aware how I come off." He turned his gaze back to the Joker, whose sharp cackle reminded Batman of a hawk descending. "But if she's in any danger from him..."

Leland sighed. She took a few seconds, working it all out in her mind.

"All right. Yes, they're at the schoolhouse. Please be as careful as possible. I would join you, but..." another sigh. "There's him, and I believe Harley needs tending to, as well."

Batman's expression darkened beneath his mask. _Another reason to ensure this woman's safety._

He'd had to pull Harley away before she lunged for Jeannie after Joker fainted. "What did you do to my Puddin," she'd screamed, pointing at Jeannie much as Joker had. "You no-good lousy dame! _What did you do to my Puddin'?"_

Jeannie had merely stared back as Harley was pulled down the corridor, the newcomer continuing to sway as if she stood precariously on a tightrope. Her eyes were fathomless pools of terror.

_Yes, the sooner I discover her connection to the Joker, the better_.

* * *

Jeannie busied herself putting up her posters that had been delivered from Thomas Wayne. She determinedly hummed along to James Brown rocking out on her father's old record player.

As she finished straightening the vintage movie poster of Hitchcock's _Rebecca_, she tried her best not to pay attention to her heart hammering away, to the darkness roiling in the pit of her stomach.

_Just pretend whatever happened today didn't happen. Morris and the others acted like it hadn't. We continued our tour as though there'd been no interruption._

But she still felt his hands hard like pincers against her shoulders. She saw those eyes. They reminded her of a rabid bird of prey. The look was so animalistic, so frenzied, she couldn't help but think of Neil.

Maybe that was why she drifted into almost a fugue state of deja vu once the Joker touched her, hawk eyes narrowed in on hers.

She stood back, satisfied with the poster's placement in between the _Duck Soup_, Tex Avery, and _My Man Godfrey_ vintages now brightening the schoolroom's chipped walls.

She checked the clock. She should be getting ready for bed soon.

_Tomorrow's your first day of official training._

She closed her eyes, swallowed the bile.

She almost jumped at the knock on her door.

She turned off the music then answered, expecting Davitz or maybe even Leland again, come to check up on her after today's episode.

Instead her heart stopped at the sight of Batman, filling her door frame.

He noticed her pupils dilate, her lips part.

He modulated his voice so that courtesy and softness were paramount. "Miss Janowski? Am I bothering you?"

She closed her mouth. Shook her head. Breathed out a noiseless, "no".

It had been a long time since he'd been face to face with someone so utterly vulnerable to the world around her. No ready weapon at her disposal, no otherworldly gifts to work to her advantage.

Just those staring eyes, empty yet somehow mournful at the same time.

She suddenly blinked as if awoken. "Um," she stood back, limply motioning him inside. "Please, uh, please come in."

An awkward twitch at the corner of her mouth served as a nervous smile, brightening her eyes momentarily.

And so swept in the Dark Knight, his jagged cape just missing her.

The black silkiness reminded her of Patty's fur.

She closed the door with a gentle click.

"I was just unpacking."

Batman's mood darkened as he took in the closed mustiness in the room, the stained walls. _This place has become a dilapidated dump since Brockbridge closed the school back when he was only a council member. And yet, here is where his cronies have placed them._

He just kept himself from grinding his teeth in frustration. Brockbridge would have to wait.

He froze as he took in the Marx Brothers posters, classic cartoon stills, and the old radio program collection lined up by the record player: Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Spike Jones.

These items seemed incongruous next to her quiet plain figure, her eyes wide and hollowed looking.

But this assortment certainly wouldn't look out of place in the Joker's cell.

"Miss Janowski" –

"You can call me Jeannie," she interjected quickly, hands folded, eyes down.

" – Jeannie." He took a step forward: a respectful step, still giving her plenty of space from where she practically cowered by the door.

She was touched by the genuine concern in his voice as he asked, "Are you all right?"

She laughed a little then, and the sound was a balm to the soul – oddly musical for its machine gun patter, just as the sight of the first real smile he'd seen on her transformed her, though it was not a mirthful smile.

Physically she was no showstopper, but that overly big and toothy smile, that laugh, that expression – there, there was a true beauty there.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, throwing her hands up at last, madly mussing her hair like a dog suddenly attacked by fleas.

She looked at him frankly and he could see how someone could be quickly drawn to her, quickly feel at ease with her, for all that a numb sadness seemed to pervade her very being. "I just don't know, baby."

He tried to picture the Joker confronted with that smile, that confiding gleam in her eyes, and he hid his shudder.

He continued. "I'm sure you want to be alone with your thoughts after everything today, so I won't stay long. I just have to ask: do you have any idea why the Joker would react the way he did today? To you?"

Jeannie felt that pit in her stomach open wide again. After so long unmoored in her insanity, she'd lost trust in her perceptions. She'd halfway convinced herself that in her anxiety she'd only imagined the intensity of the Joker's eyes on her, only imagined that he was pointing at her and only her - maybe she only imagined him forcing her against the wall. _You're not. Supposed. To be here._

Anxiety and paranoia by their very nature can turn a person self-centered: was it something I said, did I hurt so-and-so's feelings, is that man across the street planning to kill me, all of that.

She resigned herself to the notion she exaggerated the whole episode.

But then, there was Harley Quinn's angered reaction. At least, she'd _assumed_ that person was Harley Quinn. Jeannie didn't know if she'd ever seen a picture of her without the jester outfit.

And now the Batman – the Joker's archnemesis who must know his behavior and motivations better than anyone – that Batman was here, in Jeannie's room, asking her if she knew why –

"I don't know, sorry," she said, shrugging once. "I've never seen him before. Well, I've _seen_ him, of course, on the news and everything. But" –

"But never in person?"

"Exactly."

Batman studied her face. Although she was a tough read because she was nervous (fidgety hands, eyes rolling slowly this way and that ), he knew a liar when he saw one.

She wasn't lying.

Still...

"Are you absolutely sure? He has been known to disguise himself. Maybe you ran into someone at the hospital you hadn't seen before, someone who could maybe look like the Joker if he had makeup on to obscure his coloring?"

Jeannie squinted, thinking. She tilted her head, hair falling to the side. "Mmm...nope! At least, I don't think so. I guess it's possible. You see, I" – a rueful smile that was darkened by the misery in her eyes. "...I have been known to sort of drift off in these kind of...well, they call them 'PTSD-induced catatonic episodes'. Not exactly catchy, but there you are. So there have been long periods throughout the past – jeez, almost twenty years now, how depressing - where..." her voice wavered slightly. "Where I haven't really been aware of what's going on around me. So, yes. I guess it's possible. But do I remember anyone like him?" A shake of the head and a firm, "No."

She couldn't make out his eyes very well from behind the mask's narrow slits, but she could tell by the shifting light inside them that they were roving over her, assessing her.

_What must someone like him think of someone like me?_

Seldom were there two less alike people on the surface: him tall and upright and strong, a starkly dark silhouette in his bat regalia; and her, short, slight, and washed out like a wraith in the dim twilight of the schoolroom.

Of course, they might share trauma, going by the fact he was a grown man dressed as a giant avenging bat.

_What tragedy pushed him outward into the very dark heart of the city, while mine pulled me relentlessly inward?_

She couldn't know that he decided that for all her physical and mental fragility, she was clearly much stronger than many would give her credit for.

But she was tired, too. He could tell by the blue semi-circles under her eyes.

"Thank you, Jeannie." He headed toward the door. While the Batman liked to surprise criminals and suspects by appearing and disappearing before they were aware, quick as a silent shot out a window or fire escape, Jeannie Janowski deserved someone fantastical like him to at least enter and exit out the door, like a normal human being.

He turned back once he was just outside the doorway. His voice was as comforting as his low rasp ever was. "It was probably nothing. The Joker's mind defies logic. More than likely he will forget the incident entirely, forget you. But just in case, try to be cautious. I'll talk to Dr. Leland about adjusting your work schedule to avoid crossing paths with him. And if anything else odd should occur" –

"Let you or Dr. Leland know immediately?"

A brisk nod. She returned it, smiling. "Thank you."

It truly was a warm, lovable, and goofy smile. She was transformed from merely average looking to someone of deep and endearing attractiveness.

Another flick of the light in the eye slits, then he was gone.

Jeannie stood still for several moments. Her eyes remained on the empty doorway. She eventually closed the door. Locked it.

All at once a soothing sort of leadenness fell over her, and she realized she felt truly comforted by the Batman's presence out there in the city, near Arkham, near her and the others. She would be all right, she felt sure of it.

...But then all of a sudden she heard that loud high twang of Neil's voice and the crunch of pine cones and leaves as she ran -

The trees ahead. The trees standing in the dark like charred skeletons, waiting to obscure her.

Jeannie snapped to and ran to her chest of drawers. With heavy, shaking hands she pulled out her pills, fumbled with the cap and almost spilled the whole bottle, then finally managed to count out the correct amount. She downed them quickly.

While she waited for the blissful leadennes to come back, she pulled out a Burns and Allen. She relaxed immediately as George's gruff voice and Gracie's squeaky one floated out of the record player's speaker.

"_Gracie...what is this you put in my pocket?"_

"_Oh, eh, just a cigar, dear."_

"_Oh yeah? Well, I've looked at a lot of cigars, but this is the first one that looked back at me."_

Laughs, laughs.

"_Here, look at it!"_

"_Ohhhhh, how cute! A cigar with a mouth. It can blow out its own smoke!"_

"_Gracie, this is a sardine."_

"_Really? Well here, I'll light it for you."_

Jeannie soaked in the blur of laughter from the studio audience.

She'd always wanted something like this to be real. She wanted to brew up zany plans involving rounding up stray cats to impress her neighbor James Mason, with a guy by her side who could crack her up when the Blur threatened to – no, in her fantasy alternative life there was no Blur, there was no Neil, and Sally and Andy and Mom were alive somewhere far away, and even though she'd been crushed to learn from his biography that George had cheated on Gracie from the very beginning (not just the once, like he'd said in _Gracie: A Love Story_), _her_ George wouldn't. _Her_ Jack Benny wouldn't. _Her_ Steve Martin, _Her_ Richard Pryor would be –

Good. Decent.

Blissfully, wonderfully uncomplicated.

She laughed, just once, a queer barking sound.

_Yeah, right._

That must be what Harley Quinn thought when she fell for the Joker. A true clown to love her and brighten her life.

_She must feel for him what Mom must have felt for Neil._

Her fingernails dug into the old school desk that now served as her vanity, and she closed her eyes tight.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

As George and Gracie started extolling the virtues of Maxwell Coffee, Jeannie wiped away some tears and began a letter to her grandfather.

* * *

Joker's eyes flew open. The cell was all blackness. Lights out; it was night.

One of the orderlies must have removed his strait-jacket as he slept.

The long hall of cells was deathly quiet.

Through his clearing disorientation, he thought: _huh. I'm actually lying here in a cold sweat. Ha! A literal cold sweat._

_How banal, how cliché!_

Now just how...?

He couldn't quite remember...

It was all a bit hazy, see. There...there was Batman in the rec room. Yes, Joker remembered that. He also dimly recalled wiping the floor with those jackals at a round of Twenty-one. He remembered Harley's obnoxious giggles like a fly buzzing in his ear and her intrusive arm around him. Then –

He shook all over as a deeper, more hellish laugh gurgled at the bottom of his throat–

Oversized overcoat, hair in a kerchief, a big familiar smile across the river as recognition dawns in her –

_No._

Ha! Hilarious.

More sweat.

A dream. He'd simply had a bad dream.

He'd – yes, he merely _thought_ he'd seen her. That girl who popped up in the back of his mind on very very very rare occasions.

You know, the one he...made up! When he wanted to imagine he'd been a regular ol' person at some point. With a regular ol' happy wife.

Sometimes it was more poetic to imagine he'd been an Average Joe with a tragic past before Batman showed up and turned him into a fantastical loon. A fun plot twist: Bats the villain, and he the romantic martyr!

But really, now. That nice ol' regular wife gag wasn't real.

Hell, for all the fronts he put on, Joker mostly remembered his former life. There was no peachy wife, no struggling career in comedy.

_But had he ever imagined her, or even thought of her until the moment he laid eyes on her? It was like one moment she was a stranger to him, and then POW: he sees her and remembers everything in one devastating_ –

Bah. Enough of this.

He sat up, shrugged off these disagreeable musings, and forgot about it.

Yet that lingering nausea was so annoying. Why wouldn't it dissipate?

Oh, boy. _Better think hard here, Jokey, try to figure this whole mess out._

_Now about that ol' past o'mine...y'know, the real one..._

Very vaguely he remembered his old man, Walter Murphy. Celebrated war hero, honorable man, until a nasty bump on his head thanks to an exploding mine overseas made him more than a little unstable. _Loco en la cabeza._ Knocked up the old lady, Irene, and beat the shit out of her. Then little John – _that's you, Jokey!_ – was born a few weeks premature out of trauma! Oh, there was also...Herb? Hal! The older brother his father had beaten into idiocy not long after John's birth.

Mama drank, Papa ranted on about the commies and the blacks and the illegals coming to take what was rightfully his, and Hal sat silent in his corner chair, drooling, as always. The dull cast was all there lined up neatly in Joker's sepia-tinted memories.

There was the usual childhood chicanery: pouring boiling water on ant hills, tying firecrackers to his teacher's shoelaces, the fun teen years committing petty robberies that sure, _one time_ involved pushing a wheelchair-bound lady down the stairs as she cried out for help in the dead of night. It was a little much, okay fine, but he couldn't deny how satisfyingly hilarious it was hearing the C-RAAACK of her bones at the bottom.

Boys'll be boys, after all!

Next he saw himself watching TV, ignoring Ma as she wailed at him after a call from his teachers, or about Mr. Gomez threatening to file charges after John cut his daughter's ponytail off with a knife. Irene was interrupting Wile E. Coyote, the drunken cow. There was a _Monty Python_ marathon on at 9:00, and if she thought she could moan and groan through that –

Oop, there's Tom and Jerry now! WHAM went the mallet.

WHAM WHAM. _WHAM._

Ooh, it made him feel -

"_Just wait until I tell your father, mister!"_

The memories gained a crimson edge, with pops of bright electric yellow, and became more vibrantly alive, as he gleefully recalled –

He was seventeen, and his father had just kicked him out for stealing the rolled up hundreds the old man kept poorly hidden throughout the house. Ran him out, really, snapping his belt all the while.

That's when he ran into Sam Spencer down the street, one of the few rich assholes in Bludhaven, whose father was pally with Walter from the military.

One wary glance from the corner of Sam's eyes, as he pulled his shiny fucking letterman jacket tighter about himself, and that's all it took for John's switchblade to come out and wheeee, out came all of Sam's blood from his throat.

John tilted his head, studying the corpse lying crumpled at his feet.

His first.

_Hmm, we're about the same size, aren't we, Sammy?_

The next day he sat contentedly in a bakery just outside the city limits. He was reading a pretty hilarious article in the newspaper. The Murphy family in Bludhaven had all died in a house fire during the night: Walter, Irene, Harold, and even teenage John.

Apparently there was only the slightest suspicion of foul play, due to the parents' bedroom seemingly being locked from the outside.

But it was hard to tell for certain, of course, since the lock was now nothing more than a melted twist of metal.

There was a side story about the missing Spencer boy, who never made it home after football practice.

John checked his watch then straightened as the bakery door opened with a jingle of bells. Ah, here he came.

John had been staking out this place for the past two months, after some of his juvie chums pointed this out as the joint Sal Valestra liked to drop into most mornings, for a cup of joe and a muffin.

And every day, like clockwork, there he was.

Only this time, John wasn't content to spy behind his newspaper.

As Sal reached into his pocket for his change, an eager hand slapped down the full amount on the counter.

"_Please, let me, Mr. Valestra!"_

Sal gave the once-over to the eager-eyed youth at his side.

"_Sorry, kid, I don't accept favors from people I don't know."_

"_Jack Napier,"_ the youth said without missing a beat, holding out that same hand. Without giving Sal a chance to refuse it, Jack took his hand in his, shaking it firmly. "_Gosh, I've wanted to meet you for the longest time!"_

There, Sal saw it: that promising off gleam in the eye. The strong lean body.

And Jack saw that he saw it.

Jack's ingratiating smile thinned. "_Care to join me for breakfast?"_

* * *

Joker leaned his head back, smile serene as he breathed out a satisfied _ahhhhh._ Yes, there it all was. Everything neatly in place. Once he became Sal's right-hand attack dog, there was no time or need for serious romance. Not that he ever wanted for female company. Gangster moll wack jobs like Harley had always flocked to him, like proverbial moths to the proverbial flame.

Nope, he had lived the swingin' bachelor good life up until that human bat knocked him into the acid.

Then he was re-born into something better, grander, and he could WHAM WHAM WHAM everyone he wanted with his mallet, or use his laughing gas, or –

Well, and so on.

Yep, it was all okay. Why'd he...why'd he even start thinking about all this anyway?

Huh. He truly could not remember. Something had driven him to take this trip down Nostalgia Avenue. He'd been desperate to disprove...something.

But it was gone. Whatever it was, _phut_, gone.

Meh, fine. If it was really important, he'd remember.

He worked out a few kinks in his shoulders, then leaned back onto his cot, head cradled in his cupped hands. He whistled "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" as he fell into another light sleep.

_...his head was in her lap as he nursed a headache after work. Sanchez was being an even bigger prick than usual about protecting his super secret project from Jack and everyone else._

_The fan on the end-table rustled his hair and her skirt underneath him. Her fingers were massaging his forehead, then she started tapping it lightly, like his forehead was a tiny bongo._

_She sang in a low sweet silly voice, "You put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up, you put the lime in the coconut..."_

_He grinned up at her. She grinned back at him, eyes squinting._

The Joker woke again, gasping, this time in tears. Breathing was difficult.

He choked out, "Jea" –

He turned on his side and vomited.


	3. Chapter 3

Leland bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from giving the smiling, tanned blonde woman in the bright red pantsuit sitting across from her a piece of her mind.

_How is it I'm able to keep my professional calm around the most notorious criminals in the world, yet sitting across the desk from Angie van den Berg tests my patience to the limit?_

For one thing, Leland detested the syrupy tone Van den Berg used, as if Joan were a naughty schoolgirl that needed some stern but loving lessons to straighten her out. "Now, I just really don't see the need for all this," she began in perfectly modulated and homey tones, a Martha Stewart clone in all but talent. "After all, aren't you always saying how we need to look at the wider purpose? You're making an awful stink about one patient, Joan."

_Dr. Leland_, Leland's mind screamed. _I'm Dr. Leland to you._

Angie van den Berg held the distinction as one of Mayor Brockbridge's top twenty backers to his mayoral campaign. She had also been head of Gotham's private school board, and had succeeded in slashing the special education department in half – which according to Brockbridge's logic, meant she had enough mental health experience to now head Arkham's board.

The bright shine off her bleached white teeth almost hurt Leland's eyes as she beamed at her. "I think we should let the matter rest, don't you, Joan?"

Leland couldn't believe it. This woman had been Brockbridge's mouthpiece for the outreach program, taking jobs away from trained staff so they could pay mental patients half the usual wages for the vacant jobs, and also freeing space at Thomas Wayne for violent criminals who couldn't fit at Arkham– and she had the audacity to not even care about the safety of those in the program. "And I think you're not hearing _me, Angie._ Do I really need to stress the issue here? The Joker singled Jeannie out. Harley is threatened by that. Believe me, I'm a trained professional who can face a lot, but even I quail at the thought of earning that much attention from either of them."

The wrinkles around Van den Berg's eyes, that were already badly obscured by her thick foundation, grew more prominent as she slit her eyes at Joan. She was at last revealing some of the serpent underneath the polished facade. "So, what, your solution is to just take this Jennie out of the program completely? Take away her freedom and stuff her back into Thomas Wayne? Why, that just seems inhumane." She tilted her head, smile drooping in sadness for Joan's narrow vision. Her slickly manicured hands were folded gently in front of her.

Leland counted to five internally, practicing the centering method she'd taught to so many. "_Jeannie_. Her name is Jeannie. And she doesn't necessarily have to go back to Thomas Wayne. I think she's ready for a halfway house, or even a place of her own, as long as we have social workers readily available who can find her a part-time job" –

"Coddle her to death, you mean," Van den Berg cut in, smile sweet.

Leland saw red. "What, one minute I'm too harsh for wanting her out of the program, and the next I'm coddling her?" She cursed herself for letting this woman rile her. _One-two-three-four-five, breathe, one-two-three-four-five..._

A deep inhale, and then she continued. "Look. I know these people. I might not work with the patients from Thomas Wayne as closely as I do the patients here at Arkham, but I trust Dr. Davitz and the late Dr. McTavish's judgment. I think we should _at least_ adjust her schedule for when the patients aren't around, maybe put her on night shift. She is a night owl, after all."

"Which is something we shouldn't encourage," Van den Berg interjected in cool clipped tones. She was apparently committed now to the role of the brisk, no-nonsense schoolmaster. "We need to make these people face their fears, confront what's bothering them. If this gal can learn how to stand her ground around such menaces to society as the Joker and Harley Quinn, well, by golly, then she'll be ready to take the world by storm! We're not a nanny state anymore, Joan. We mean to shake up these people and make them face reality."

She spread her hands out over the table, making her American flag patterned scarf more visible from where it was tucked into her collar. She couldn't quite meet Leland's eyes as she said, "Besides, the board and I spent weeks hammering out the details of their work schedules. It would be a shame and a waste of our budget to do any more retooling."

Leland leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes. _Ah, so she finally says it._ The real reason. She's too goddamn worried about messing with their schedules. She and Brockbridge had decided that after the early negative reaction to their decision to implement the program, that the best tactic was to make a big show of Van den Berg and the rest of the board working closely with Leland's staff to hammer out every detail of the patients' work schedules. Show they cared and were intimately involved every step of the way.

To re-do Jeannie's schedule would not only be time-consuming, it could also potentially leak to the press, where questions would be asked about just why they changed her schedule. If the real reason came out, there would once again be outcry about putting non-violent mental patients in the paths of violent criminals like the Joker.

Leland couldn't believe the circus Gotham had become. Not even the Joker could have created such maddening chaos if he tried.

"I don't accept this," she said at last. "I am the doctor here, Angie. When it comes to my patients, I make the call."

Van den Berg's sparkling blue eyes suddenly froze, steel beaming forth. "I see. And so I should call Barry in, huh? See what he has to say?" Another concerned head tilt. "As I recall, your last meeting with him didn't go so well. Wasn't the idea of a transfer bounced around? Maybe to a clinic outside Metropolis? You do seem a little worn out, dear."

Leland's face was an icy mask, successfully hiding her inner turmoil.

_Goddammit._

Leland didn't yet know how far Brockbridge's tentacles reached into every corner of Gotham and the sister cities, but she didn't want to test it.

If she left – that is, if Brockbridge found the right excuse to get rid of her – what would become of her patients?

She closed her eyes in defeat.

She wasn't strong enough to abandon them in order to stand up to this new regime.

* * *

Jeannie wished her legs would stop shaking. That was the only conscious self-observation she allowed herself as she went through the motions, following Morris on his rounds. They were in a hall empty of inmates, their forty-five minutes in the rec room in effect.

"Fill the pail, then put in the solution. Stir it up real good with the mop, make sure the solution gets evenly distributed."

Jeannie nodded, following each of his movements with darting eyes.

She unconsciously smoothed a wrinkle in her slacks.

She thought about making a joke about how the mop - stick thin with scraggly dirt-colored strands - resembled her a bit. She thought better of it, however - the joke would take too long to set up, Morris might not get it, and not everyone found jokes that self-deprecating all that charming. Really, they were more self-serving than genuinely funny.

After all, she'd done her best to look nice today. She even got up an hour early to give her time to shower, dry, and do her hair. She wore a tight ponytail, her strands hardly greasy and lank at all.

She even had a touch of mascara on – waterproof mascara, since she didn't want to sweat it into smears cleaning the halls.

In her standard issue button-down shirt, slacks, and long navy blue apron, she felt almost like a functioning member of society.

_Let's see how long before I fuck it up by spilling the solution or getting it in my eye or getting spooked by an inmate_ –

A hard blink, shoving the negativity back.

Focus on what Morris is saying. Focus.

"All right," he said, checking his watch. "Union rules means I have to abandon you for a bit, I'm afraid. Gotta grab some lunch. I'll be back in an hour. While I'm gone, you can empty the recycling in F-Hall 216 like I showed you. Got it?"

A friendly slap on her back. She nodded quickly, eyes as wide as dinner plates.

He ambled off, whistling.

Jeannie stood still like a statue of a war-shocked peasant woman for a full minute before snapping to.

* * *

"_Hmmmm...shhhhh...hmmmm,"_ Pamela Isley's soft voice entreated her newest baby girl to spring to life. She'd named her the Siren, due to the fact she didn't require much water and sun; singing was what made her bloom.

"_Hmmmm_...yes, my love..."

Pure motherly pride and ecstasy filled her heart as the drooping flower attached to the sloping vine suddenly pulsed. Its pale pink color seemed to heat from within, turning it into a more vibrant fuchsia.

"That's it, my love...come out and see the world, take it by storm..._hmmmmmmm."_

Very soft you could almost miss it, came an answering high tone from the flower's golden bud...

...when that little blonde-haired bird of Ivy's decided to out-chirp the Siren.

"I tell ya, Red, I'm just so worried about Mr. J!"

And just like that, Poison Ivy's connection with her daughter was cut short. The bud retracted back into its leaves.

Yet was it really that which made Ivy's blood turn to fire in her veins? Or was it the subject matter her favorite pet bird was chirping on about?

When Brockbridge's budget cuts first swamped Arkham, Ivy found herself in a surprisingly fortuitous position. Brockbridge and Van den Berg wanted as many patients out as possible, to free up room in the cells.

Ivy eagerly volunteered to move her things - her babies - into the asylum's greenhouse. Leland reluctantly agreed, so long as she and the staff had strict surveillance over what Ivy grew there.

And after much cajoling from Harley, Leland had at last acquiesced and let her move in with Ivy as well. Again, with extra surveillance. The security guards stood stock still at the hall's entryway.

At times like this, Ivy almost regretted the decision.

As she sighed and comfortingly stroke the Siren's shy petals, Harley paced back and forth, moving in and out of the vines all around her.

"It just so isn't like him! He's been in his cell since yesterday, when he saw _her._" The last word spat out like a bad tooth. "I just don't get it, Red!"

Ivy studied Harley from the corner of her eye. The jester bird always seemed distressed one way or another about that damn clown, but this had a worried edge Pam seldom saw in her.

_Then again, the Joker himself seemed uncharacteristically freaked out by that little mousy thing from Thomas Wayne Memorial. Ha, who knew the Clown Prince of Crime was scared of mice?_

Ivy stretched, two vines automatically swinging down at the gesture, coiling around her into a sort of swing. Her shapely, jade green-tinted legs swung back and forth, back and forth.

She grew even more annoyed when Harley didn't seem to notice the hypnotic sight. "Oh, what's the big deal, Harl? So the Joker's wigged out. It's not the end of the world."

"You don't get it, Pam!" Harley at last stopped pacing, face red as she tried to explain. "I know Mr. J. I know him better than anybody. And I've never seen him like that! Never seen him faint, like some broad in a melodrama! That ain't like him!"

"Well, it's about time," Ivy snapped. "He's knocked you out plenty of times." She turned away, pretending to nuzzle her vine, so that Harley couldn't see her face.

Whenever she thought of that clown laying a hand on her Harley bird...

Harley made an exaggerated _uggghhh_ sound, as if Ivy were telling the same bad joke over and over. "I keep telling you, Red. You just don't get it. You don't get the joke."

"What joke? What's so funny about him knocking you around?"

"You putz, haven't you ever watched the Three Stooges, or seen Itchy & Scratchy? That's what Mr. J and I are! We're partners in a Vaudeville routine, only we take our stuff off the stage and to the streets! We're a slapstick Bonnie and Clyde!" Her eyes glowed with the madly sincere fervor of a revivalist. "Sure he gets carried away sometimes, but that's because he's a confused little boy who doesn't realize that the slapstick stuff in cartoons can really hurt me." She rubbed her arm in almost a bashful gesture, her wide smile wavering slightly on her face.

The sight made Ivy's chest ache.

_How deeply in denial she is,_ Ivy thought. _How deeply he's broken her._

Harley was huffing again, staring at the floor as if it had killed her parents. "Whoever that chick is, if I find out she hurt Mr. J in any way" –

"You'll _what?_ Hurt her like he's hurt you, so many times?"

Harley grumbled low in her throat, her hands angry fists at her side. Her eyes still hadn't left the floor.

Although it pained her to do it, Ivy plucked one of the roses from a nearby vine and tucked it behind Harley's ear. "Relax, Harl. She can't hold a candle to you."

And indeed, what a rosy picture Harley made, her cheeks warming at the compliment, the shade matching the petals.

_When has the Joker ever made her bloom like this? He has no idea how to nurture and care for such a rare flower._

"Gee, Red, thanks. Real compliment coming from you, hot stuff." A chummy but gentle punch in the shoulder, that maybe lingered longer than it should – _don't think that way, Pam._

That mischievous little girl look that always made Ivy weak in the knees returned to Harley's face. "I mean, she really isn't that pretty, is she?"

"Well, I didn't really get a good look at her. But frankly, this is a very anti-feminist vein our conversation is taking, and you know how I feel about that."

"Yeah, yeah." Harley sighed. "I just wish I knew what Mr. J saw in her."

A nervous tap on the greenhouse door.

They turned and Ivy raised her eyebrows. Harley's came down violently over her eyes.

The lady in question stood just outside the glass door. She was carrying a large disposable bag. "Knock knock, ladies." Her voice was pleasantly surprising: soothing, warm. Genuine. "Your friendly neighborhood garbage lady, come to pick up some yard waste."

A nervous titter and wide, crooked smile.

_...Miss America she ain't, but she's actually not bad looking, if you ask me._ Ivy snuck a look at Harley.

In contrast, the clown girl's face was so red she _didn't_ look her best. "Huh! Well, if it ain't Miss Typhoid Mary! Come to make all the rest of us sick and faint?"

The woman ducked her head shyly. "I really don't know what that was all about." The big toothy grin stretched thin. "I just...I just gotta finish my rounds before Morris gets back from lunch." She looked back and forth at them. "Can I come in?"

Before Harley could respond, Ivy said, "Yes, please do. I need to get some of this old fertilizer out of here."

With movements oddly both graceful and awkward, the woman minced in. Her head had mostly been down throughout, so when she dared peeking up and took in the greenhouse's nursery, her stride slowed and her face showed nothing but awe.

She seemed to forget her task, forget her intimidating company.

There was a poetic sort of mystification in her eyes, in the gentle way her lips were parted.

"I've never seen anything like this," her voice was a whisper full of sad, beautiful things.

With childlike hesitation, her hand hovered over the Siren, as if it were a glorious, mythical beast she wasn't sure would attack or not. She crouched down, studying the orchids beneath.

Both Harley and Ivy were unwittingly taken in by the breathless look of excitement on her face as she suddenly beamed at them. "I haven't been in a real garden in years. This...this is amazing." She chuckled, taking in the rest of the greenery.

A bright machine gun laugh as she found Pamela's prize daffodil. "Look!" the woman called out artlessly, looking with gleaming, squinting eyes at Harley. "It's you!"

Ivy saw Harley swallow her reluctant proud smile.

"I call it the Harlequin," Ivy said. It took some very subtle genetic engineering, mostly involving ladybug dna, but it had been worth the effort: the three larges petals were split in the middle with red and black on either side, with white balls of pollen balancing off the ends.

A delicate jester's head.

The woman clapped, giggling. "It's perfect."

Ivy grew reflective. How odd that the woman Ivy had once taken in mostly out of pity became so entrenched in Ivy's life that she started designing and engineering flowers for her, her, a silly, pretty little clown girl?

The pretty little clown girl who still hadn't said anything, and was even now forcing her lips into a pout, her arms crossed.

Still, Ivy couldn't help teasing her daffodil just a bit. "And what is your name, fellow flower enthusiast?"

"Jeannie," she said quickly, then almost blushed. _Shit, I'm not supposed to engage with them too much. Just like you, huh, get distracted by shiny things and fuck it all up._ "I'm from Thomas Wayne Memorial. Obviously."

"You don't seem too nuts to me," Harley at last said, in a tone that clearly said she didn't mean it as a compliment. Suspicion dripped from her words. "You seem nice and sane."

Jeannie looked to Ivy, an unsure grin on her face. "Thanks?"

"Almost like you're some kind of _fraud!_"

Ivy bit back her laugh. Harley thought she was having some sort of Hercule Poirot moment here.

The nervous tittering came out of this Jeannie person again, yet there was unmistakable pain brimming in her eyes.

She was like someone coerced into filling in for a major part in a play, but was untrained, unsure how to act naturally.

Her smile jerked too stiffly, and her hands were constantly moving at her sides.

She laughed like a donkey.

Harley and Ivy just stared at her.

A fog seemed to pass over her eyes and there was misery and resignation and - all at once the fog cleared and there was Panic. She'd apparently remembered what she was there for.

She rushed to the fertilizer. "Um...is this the bag you mean? Or...all of them?" The panic pulsed in her every movement. It inspired a rare human pity in Ivy.  
"Just the one, dear."

Shoulders slumping in relief, Jeannie after much struggling hoisted the fertilizer into the garbage bag (she'd apparently never win any weight-lifting competitions, either.)

She staggered a bit holding onto the almost overflowing bag. "Welp, it was nice to meet you ladies."

She waddled to the door but turned back at the last second. "Oh, Doctor?"

They both looked at her strangely.

Jeannie shook her head, blowing a stray hair out of her face with a snort. "Oh, right. Both doctors. I mean Dr. Quinzel."

Ivy noticed Harley stiffen at the title. _She never got much chance to use it before her Precious Puddin' ruined her career. Hearing it probably brings back the life she could have had, the promising future taken from her._

This Jeannie person was suddenly quite shy. "I really don't know why the Joker fainted at the sight of me. It's been bothering me, as you can imagine." Shoulders hunched, her eyes darting around as if afraid the greenhouse walls had ears, she asked quietly, "Do you have any clue why...?"

A look crossed Harley's face Ivy hadn't seen before. It was a hurt look, a confused look, and at the same time a deeply melancholy grim look. "I wish I knew, toots. I really wish I knew."

A moment of silence.

"Yeah," Jeannie said at last, disappointment in her face, and consternation, too. "I guess we'll all never know." Another lopsided grin. "See you ladies."

And she was gone.

Ivy hated the sadness in Harley's face.

To take her mind off it...

"You know, she really isn't unattractive. I think she's adorable."

"Oh, shut up."

* * *

Joker knew he could just leave. At any time, he could pick a lock, knock out a security guard, and high-tail it out of here.

He knew this, and yet something kept him rooted to Arkham, to _her_ passing him by on her rounds, spray cleaner in hand, pushing a vacuum, mopping.

Why, pray tell, did his legs turn into useless tubes of jelly at the very thought of escape, particularly when out of the corner of his eye he'd see _her_-

Wherever he was, whether lounging in the rec room, walking the grounds, or in his cell, whenever she came by, he felt like weights were tied to his legs, forcing him in place.

Leland or Harley might diagnose his behavior as symptomatic of a panic attack. However, that was impossible. The Joker didn't _get_ panic attacks.

That would make him just like any other by-the-book loony out there, like _her._ And the Joker _wasn't_ like them.

Truly, he had nothing but contempt for people like _her_. Nothing was more frustrating than people who lost their minds without gaining the epiphany that insanity frees you to do whatever you like. They viewed insanity as a prison instead of the sweet freedom it truly was.

These sad sacks had all the surface traits of madness - hallucinations, voices in the head, uncontrollable tics - yet unlike Joker and his costumed cohorts, none of the spark to spread this beautiful madness to others. Make them pay for refusing to see the truth.

No, these pathetic lambs instead played right inside the city's rules, compliant and submissive.

Degraded.

No, anyone who lost their minds but didn't use it to take the reins of power were at their core the weakest society had to offer.

Yet here the Joker was, unable to move at the thought of escape, just like _them_.

Because of _her._

* * *

It was about two weeks into her so-called employment when Morris finally bit the bullet. He followed the directions from Jeannie's work schedule and took her into the Joker's cell to show her how to clean it out.

And the Joker was there, strait-jacketed on his cot, two orderlies on each side of him.

The orderlies shared a quick glance once the girl entered and the Joker started breathing heavily, sounding for all the world like a rickety furnace.

Jeannie felt the buzz of tension in the air prick at the skin of her arms. She felt oddly on display.

His presence on the cot pounded at the corner of her vision, but she was determined to focus on what Morris was doing, to appear as professional as she could.

So she did what she always did - she fought the hysterical giggles threatening to bubble out of her, and her smile was stiff and unnaturally plastered on her face as she minced in, a humorless sort of skip to her gait as she followed closely behind Morris.

Morris who was blissfully indifferent to the charged environment, and who pointed listlessly at each task he wanted her to do around the Joker's quarters. "Take that rag and try to get the gunk from under the sink, that place collects grime like nobody's business."

_Ah, a task, a concrete task with concrete instructions. I can do this. I can do this._

Blue, white, and silver flashes of electric light in Joker's eyes as he watched her kneel delicately, scrubbing as hard as her little wrist allowed.

All of a sudden the cell was not the cell, but a nice little apartment with a ragtime band playing on the radio, and she was still scrubbing under the sink.

Morris and the orderlies and Arkham itself were gone, and he wasn't strait-jacketed on the cot anymore. He was standing in the kitchen, watching her as she scrubbed, as she hummed along to Scott Joplin.

She was such a sweet elfin creature, so lackadaisical and daydreamy doing her slapdash housework, that the rush of tenderness he felt almost floored him.

So he did what he always did - he came up with a joke to make her laugh.

"Hey, Jeannie!"

He was still in the apartment, so he didn't quite understand the shocked jerk of her shoulders and look of bright-eyed alarm on her face as she turned to him. He also didn't understand where the stern warning from some male voice beside him came from, but he didn't care about that voice, because Scott Joplin was on the radio, and Jeannie looked so darn cute in that ridiculous pink frilly apron her elderly co-worker at the playing card company got her as a wedding present, and he had to make her laugh.

"Why can't Helen Keller hike the Alps?"

Her eyes were wide fogged windows.

"Because she's dead."

The fog cleared into a bright sunrise as laughter spurted out of her mouth and she hid her face in her arms from where they clung stiffly to the sink.

"All right, that's enough, wise guy. Morris, I think you and the little lady have done enough for today."

"Roger that."

The apartment faded like mist, and Jeannie hopped up from the sink in his cell, head tucked even further into her neck after succumbing to the Big Bad Clown's joke. She followed Morris out quickly, without a backward glance.

The Joker was passive and limp as the orderlies untied the jacket.

* * *

There were other episodes, and each time a new Joker reared his head to take in this vague but persistent phantom from some sort of unknown past. It was as if each version of himself was grappling with this steady and consistent vision that lived in some untouched corner of himself.

There was a night when the patients were being shepherded back to their cells and he saw her scrubbing the floor. Her shoulders were hunched upward, as if she expected someone to jump at her, yet was resigned to the idea.

A white hot rage at the pit of his stomach, and he yelled out, "Hey, look! The asylum's added a slip n' slide for us!" And he'd kicked over the bucket and she cringed to the side.

He yelled _wheeeee_ and slid all the way down the corridor on the mix of hot water and soap. The orderlies tried to keep their footing as they slid after him.

She never once looked up from where she cringed.

Another time she was raking leaves outside the rec room. Usually this would be one of Reggie's duties, but she'd seen him pacing outside the shed, tears in his eyes, and she gave him a wink and a word and he trudged slowly back to the school house.

As she raked, she heard a meow and turned to see a stray cat perched on a nearby ledge.

It was a black cat with midnight fur, and she thought of that brainless but sweet black lab mix she once knew.

She smiled up at the feline. "Hey, partner! Whatcha doin' up there?"

Rake and leaves were forgotten. She gave the skittish cat a respectful distance, even as she held out her hands to it. "You don't want to be up there all by yourself, cats don't always fall on their feet, regardless of reputation. Come on, baby."

That cat stared at this friendly looking human with the uncommonly big smile, listened to her soft low voice. The animal at least seemed to come to terms with the situation and took the gamble.

Jeannie squealed in surprise and delight as the cat landed in her arms.

In a confiding whisper, she asked the creature in her arms, "Is it all right if I boop your nose with mine?"

As if reading her mind, the cat reached up and did it for her.

Jeannie's chuckle was deep and warm.

Then like cats and humans always do, it leapt out of her arms without a second thought and disappeared into the woods around Arkham.

Jeannie stood staring after it, a foolish feeling of loss almost overtaking her.

_That's all._

She jumped as someone banged against the bars on the window behind her.

The Joker's livid face, white and red and green like something out of a nightmare, was staring down at her. His leering smile was as wide as ever, but the eyes still had that dangerous gleam she'd first noticed when he forced her against the wall.

She could just hear his muffled words from within. "_Hey, Catwoman! Bats is in Gotham, you stupid feline! Now get back to the work you weren't really hired for, idiot!"_ He banged his head against the bars, laughing, laughing.

She grabbed the rake and sped to another part of the building.

* * *

Harley was at her wit's end.

Would her Puddin' never snap out of this funk?

They were in the rec room again, inmates playing chess or watching TV around them. Something in Harley just kept her back from bringing up that Jeannie person to him. She _would_ bring it up, eventually. It wasn't like she was afraid, really, but the damn insecurity and jealousy she felt blocked up her throat whenever she tried.

But Harley had heard things. Heard the nurses talk about how the Joker seemed determined to replace Harley with the new lady from Thomas Wayne. How he seemed to alternate between trying to scare the wits out of her and also showing a rare soft spot for her.

Overhearing this gossip made the world spin in Harley's mind, made her almost break down under the sheer weight of her despair.

Harley pressured Pammy and the others, making them promise not to tease him about Jeannie.

So far, they all seemed on her side. How sad that she had no problem wrapping around her finger her friends here at Arkham, but never Mr. J.

His eyes kept darting to the door now, to different corners, as if he were trapped in a haunted house where ghosts might jump out at him at any moment. He still laughed that adorable mad laugh, still mercilessly teased Crane and Dent, still pinched her cheek a _little_ too hard.

But there was a frantic edge to all that now, as if Mr. J were _pushing_ it rather than really _feeling_ it, y'know?

Right now he was sitting in an armchair, his fingers restlessly tapping the sides. He was almost catatonic again, strange high giggles escaping him sometimes, his lips shifting from a leer to a grimace faster than the speed of light.

_Light, that's right_, Harley mentally latched onto the word. _You gotta keep it light! My Puddin' needs to see the lighter side of life again!_

She nudged him with her elbow, sidling up to sit on the arm of his chair. "Hey, Mr. J! Ol' Hats just told me a real good one!" She made a fun show of clearing her throat, like a ringmaster before a big circus. "Eh-heh-heh-_hem!_ 'Why is a raven'" –

Before she could finish, she heard the Joker hiss in a breath, his wandering cackle caught in his throat.

Her blood boiled as _she_ entered, carrying a spray bottle and wash rag, heading toward the windows.

"Mr. J," Harley asked softly, a gentle hand on his arm.

He growled, wrenching away from her, hunched over as he stared and stared and stared at that quiet plain figure -

Harley's blood turned to ice as she recognized the gravelly sound coming from deep down in Mr. J's throat. It triggered that flight response in her, since she heard it every time she didn't quite get the joke right, didn't quite pull off a stunt right, didn't quite do anything quite right, and he'd –

She shivered as the noise grew in intensity, his straining eyes on Jeannie wiping the window.

One of the doctors stopped to chat with her. Jeannie whispered something in a bubbling voice and the doctor threw her head back, laughed.

Jeannie smiled.

The Joker's heart about popped.

The smile that haunted, the smile that burned, the smile that made life worth living, the smile he tried to escape.

But with a new look of pain in her eyes that hadn't been there before.

Before.

* * *

"_Hal! What are you doing here, you magnificent bastard?"_ Jack was delighted. He hadn't seen Hal in weeks.

Yet here he was, strolling down the red and white tiled halls of Fort Joseph High as if he hadn't graduated three years before.

His handsome big brother was with a guy about his age, a fellow handsome chap with dark curly hair. "Hey, li'l brother! There's a long weekend at the university for conferences, so I thought I'd stop by the old digs and see how you're doing your first week of senior year." He mussed Jack's hair then jerked his chin to his friend. "This is Danny Cortez. We're on the swim team together. Dan, this is my pain-in-the-ass baby brother, John. We call him Jack because Dad's always on him about his jackanapes."

Jack crossed his eyes and puffed out his cheeks, tongue curled. A gookie, the Marx Brothers called it.

That heart-warming satisfaction as Hal and his friend laughed. "Nice to meet you, Jackanapes!" Danny slapped his hand in a hearty handshake. "This idiot won't stop going on about you," he said, nodding at Hal.

The two friends' eyes gleamed fondly at each other, and Jack was surprised and maybe a tiny bit hurt that Hal had such a good friend he hadn't told him about yet.

"Hey," Hal said. "You're on lunch, right? Wanna grab a hot dog with Dan and me?"

Jack's face brightened. "Sure! Gotta hurry back, though. Got study hall with the Snod." He rolled his eyes.

"Hey now, the Snod's not that bad."

"The Snod?" Dan asked.

Hal explained. "Mr. Snodgrass. Fort Joseph's old standby, the guidance counselor. This one's sworn enemy."

Almost by magic, Jack's face transformed into that of a simpering, bilious blowhard as he said in an eerily accurate and nasal voice, "Now, see here, Mr. Murphy, that act might be popular now, but once you're out trying to get a job, you'll find yourself laughed out of interviews. Oh, ouch!" His knees buckled as he grabbed his ass, taking long strides down the hall. "My god, my hemorrhoids! Get back in, you pointy demons, get back in! I will not kowtow to you! I will run a marathon again, by Christ! Ow!"

Even though Danny had never met Snodgrass, the sight of this tall, gangly seventeen-year-old aping a sixty-year-old hemorrhoid sufferer made him keel over in laughter along with Hal.

Hal, who was mirthfully trying to reign in his younger brother. "Goddammit, Jack, stop," he said in-between gasping laughs. "You'll get detention again."

Jack didn't care. He was a big fan of dope and drink, but even they couldn't give him the high playing the clown did. As he marched past each student by their locker, coming up with more extravagant oaths in Snodgrass's nasal twang, he soaked in the laughter and the approval it brought.

Hal was the Golden Boy of the Murphy household, there was no escaping that fact. He was handsome, buff, captain of the swim team both when he was here at Fort Joseph and now at Gotham U, where he was studying business, at his father's urging. Hal was Dad's kid, through and through. Honorable, upright.

But Jack was the one who made everyone laugh.

He didn't know who he took after. Not Irene; he loved his mom, of course, but she was a very gentle, timid lady, without much humor to speak of.

"You're a weird one, little brother," Hal had told him since they were kids. He'd always said so fondly, laughing, so Jack wore the label of weird as a badge of honor. For save their father, there was no one Jack looked up to more than Hal.

Hal had stood up for him when some of the more resentful neighbors had picked on Jack for his gangly frame growing up, and for the fact that thanks to Walter Murphy's sparkling military record and business sense, they were one of the more well-off families in Bludhaven.

Only once had Jack fought back, and the violence with which his fingers clawed at the boy's face, drawing blood, frightened him almost as much as it had the boys and Hal, pulling Jack off of him.

"You better stick to jokes, little brother," Hal had admonished him later that evening, wrapping a bandage around Jack's bruised knuckles.

"Sometimes I wish my punchlines were actual punches," Jack said in an icy monotone that unwillingly made his twelve-year-old brother shiver.

"Hey," he'd said softly, pulling nine-year-old Jack into a side hug. "Let me land the punches for you, you hear?"

Hal was Jack's knight, but it was Walter Murphy both boys looked up to.

There was no more honorable and fair-minded man alive. Sure, his beliefs were a little old-fashioned and conservative for Jack's tastes, real churchy, but a more model father and husband didn't exist.

When Jack's nightmares got too bad, when he dreamed _he_ was Tom or Jerry, and the mallet was his, and he was WHAM-WHAM-WHAMMING the whole neighborhood and it felt _so good_, it was Walter who came in and sat on his bed, laid a steadying hand on his chest.

His face like a more creased Hal's was wise, loving. "Listen to me, Jack," he'd say. "I know you love your cartoons and your Marx Brothers, and that's fine. You've got a good heart. But you can't let that stuff get in your head so much. You have real potential, son. Don't forget that. When your bad dreams start to convince you otherwise, that's when you need to be at your toughest." His eyes narrowed. "You need to look at them square in the eye, and say _No. That's not who I am._" His gaze gentled as he ruffled his son's hair. "Can you do that for me, Jack?"

Jack would then throw himself into his father's arms, his wet cheek pressed against that unmovable wall that was Walter Murphy's chest. "Don't ever hate me, Dad."

"Now that's a promise, Jackanapes." Walter Murphy, stern and stoic, would unfailingly press a hard kiss into his son's curly hair.

And so Jack felt free to grow into his own goofy, fun-loving self, as long as it was the _best_ version of himself, to please the old man.

He would do anything for Walter, for Hal, for Irene. They were good, honorable people and he would _not_ let them down.

And so who cared if the Snod caught him and punished him, so long as Hal was laughing the way he was?

Yet it wasn't Hal's laugh that suddenly filled a warmth in him he hadn't quite felt before, but in an odd way felt like home.

"HA-HA-HA-HA."

He faltered a little in his stride. He'd never heard a laugh that actually went HA-HA-HA-HA before, like something out of a newspaper comic – and yet, it somehow sounded more genuine and real than any other laugh he heard before.

That laugh alone –

He wouldn't realize it until four years later, but he fell in love with Jeannie's laugh before he even laid eyes on her.

When in the midst of laughing students he did finally spy the culprit, his heart pumped strangely.

It was a young girl, maybe not even fifteen, _probably too young for you, you pervert._ A freshman, presumably. She was quietly dressed and standing next to some gawky looking girls, more freshmen, the kind that were probably in glee or chess club.

Yet those eyes that peered out of those bangs were not quite shy or prim like her companions, though her dress and posture (holding books against her stomach) were.

The spark there held a mischievous recognition.

Their gaze really only met for a brief moment before his strides took him out the door, to Hal's used convertible.

He never spoke to her throughout his last year at Fort Joseph High School.

But he saw her, heard her about.

Whenever their eyes met, whether across the hall or in assemblies, or outside school as she whizzed by on her bike – it was like they were sharing their own private injoke with just a glance and a wicked smile.

She became his laugh track that last year. When he dressed as Fort Joseph's mascot, a giant trout, and danced seductively to Etta James at the pep rally, twirling his giant rubber fin like an exotic dancer does a glove or stocking, it was her he was aiming his material at. He never felt more alive, like he had more purpose, then when she'd collapse on her side or against a friend on the bleachers, abandoning herself to the laughter.

When for Senior Prank Day, he and a few other boys had placed firecrackers in the ventilation system, he made sure to lag behind in the freshman hall as the pops started, and only agreed to leave with the rest when he heard her excited shrieks and laughs among all the others as the students were ushered out by their harried teachers.

When he saw her big smile as she ran after her friends, he felt like senior year had been a triumph.

He felt a weird pang on his very last day at school. He walked out, head full of Snodgrass's surprisingly kind words about how proud he was of Jack for earning that scholarship, and that he'd surely be a fantastic engineer.

He took one last long look at the old place. It was a dump, and most of the teachers taught as though they were half-asleep.

But by golly, he'd miss the doggone place. He'd miss his best bud Sam Spencer, who was headed to Metropolis on a football scholarship. He'd miss Caroline and Judith, the only two steady girlfriends he'd had throughout high school.

However, it was time. He knew he would make a good engineer, and while he wasn't super ambitious about it – ever since he saw _Duck Soup_ on TV for the first time as a child, comedy had been his secret passion and dream – he knew a career in engineering would make the old man happy.

Plus, he'd get to hang with Hal and Danny at Gotham U.

As he turned away and headed toward his own used convertible (compliments of the old man and old lady, a graduation gift), he heard a bicycle bell chime and turned around.

There rode his machine-gun-laugh sweetie, foot off her pedal on the ground, wearing a pale pink summer dress, waving at him goodbye.

And he was surprised that tears stung his eyes as he realized he'd most likely never see those bangs, that goofy smile, or hear that loopy, familiar laugh he felt like he'd heard his whole life ever again.

He gave her a wink and a salute. He watched her watch him in the rearview mirror as he drove away.

A month later, his entire world fell apart.

* * *

During this strange reverie of the Joker's, Morris had stopped by to tell Jeannie to plug in the shampooer and get the rugs in the hall by the rec room.

Jeannie floated to the outlet, mind apparently on other things, as the wall of outlets seemed rather crowded with multiple other cords.

Dimly the Joker saw what she was doing, and everything was emphasized in terrible technicolor as she was about to plug in -

"_Sir, I'm sorry but your wife had an accident this morning - testing a baby bottle heater - there was an electrical short and -"_

"_Puddin'!_ Puddin', what's the matter?"

Joker could barely hear her from where he cradled his head in his hands, in between his legs, grinding his teeth and growling. He didn't notice or care about her arms around him, trying to get him to look at her.

He cried out and jumped for Jeannie as she was about to plug in the shampooer.

He pushed her away with a roar.

"You _idiot_," he yelped in a strangled voice the residents of Arkham weren't used to hearing from him. "Do you see how many cords are already plugged in? What are you, a moron as well as _crazy?_"

She was on her back on the ground, face unreadable in shock.

His breathing slowed and he felt a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, knowing all eyes were on him.

_Embarrassment?_

_No. No._

_The Joker doesn't feel embarrassment._

He heard her rattling little breaths beneath him.

_The smile he felt he'd known his entire life._

She looked almost concerned.

_Honey, don't worry. I still love you, y'know? Job or no job..._

No.

"_You're good in the sack..."_

NO. Lust, now; horrible lust he hadn't felt in years, because beautiful violence had taken its place, but now he stared at her legs and just knew how euphoric and hot and tight it was between them, how their bodies -

"_...And you know how to make me laugh."_

Her brow creased and there was a warmth to her expression. She looked almost _sorry_ for him.

"_No."_

No one was allowed to feel sorry for him unless he wanted them to, like when he told Harley all about mean ol' Dad beating him, or when he fed those parole officers the story of the neglectful mother.

With whiplash speed, he pushed Harley away who'd rushed over to him, and she fell with an "oof" to the ground.

Pure hatred, resentment, and something far more torturous Jeannie couldn't name seared out of the Joker's eyes as he hurried out of the room, taking long, dangerous strides toward the safety of his cell.


	4. Chapter 4

Ivy watched as Harley ground her teeth, the clown girl trying to ignore the sound of the vacuum behind her.

They were in the library, Harley having accompanied Ivy on her quest to find more books on seed rejuvenation.

They were lounging at one of the careworn oak tables, Ivy keeping an eye out for potential splinters as Harley anxiously ran her hand over the surface.

Harley was so wound up she practically jumped as Ms. Ames, Arkham's librarian, called out to the source of all Harley's worries right now. "Jeannie! When you get a moment, could you get the spot behind the comic books? I think one of the patients got some Cheeto dust on the floor." A shady glance at Harley, who ordinarily would have said something like _oops_ then shrugged.

Now, though, Harley only glared at Jeannie over her shoulder.

"No problem!" That stupid big smile again, eyes turning into friendly semicircles.

A soft, tentative "hey, girls," as she pushed the vacuum past the two, an unobtrusive chumminess in her shy glance.

Ivy barely acknowledged her, so nose deep into her obscure volume on seed reproduction was she.

But Harley took a peek at Ivy, a peek at Ms. Ames busying herself at a malfunctioning computer, and then very quietly slipped away from the table.

* * *

Jeannie dug the vacuum into one particularly stubborn orange stain, and felt a ridiculous amount of satisfaction as it slowly faded, swallowed up by the vacuum's gaping maw.

Harley Quinn was suddenly there, ankles and arms crossed against the display case. She was munching on an apple.

Something about her stance reminded Jeannie of Bugs Bunny, nonchalantly enjoying a carrot behind Elmer Fudd as he pointed a gun down the rabbit hole.

As if reading her mind, Harley said, "Eh, what's up, doc?"

A soft laugh. "Oh, you know. This and that." She was surprised she was close to liking her work here - except for him, of course. Most of the patients just ignored her, and those she did speak with were for the most part decent enough. She'd earned a place in Tetch's good graces by turning him onto a little shop in Gotham that would deliver vintage posters, including a rare one of the 1933 film version of _Alice in Wonderland._The Riddler was a shameless flirt, always coming up with a wink and some randy rhyme to make Jeannie snort. Poison Ivy was kind enough, but a bit condescending. However, given the fact she resembled some otherworldly goddess, Persephone in the flesh, Jeannie could understand a little condescension. She truly was more than human.

She hadn't seen the Joker since the episode with the shampooer in the rec room that morning. He apparently hadn't left his cell. She couldn't understand the stabbing sense of urgency she felt when she saw his eyes, as if she was forced to recall something rather strange and dreamlike.

And now here was Harley, the only patient besides the Joker who seemed intent on both avoiding her and harassing her, depending on their mood.

The lady in question inspected her nails, apparently in a bid to look uninterested in her own words. "So what's your story anyhow, sister? Why'd they lock you up in that other loony bin?"

Although she was loath to answer the actual question, she couldn't help being tickled by the way Harley asked it. Jeannie felt like she was in some pre-code women's prison picture, Harley the tough-talking Ginger Rogers-type cellmate with a hidden heart of gold.

And here was Jeannie, the simpering ingenue.

She finally shrugged. "I have episodes, that's all." _Annette Hanshaw in my voice there. 'That's all.'_

"Oh, yeah? What kind of episodes?"

Something in this Jeannie's face suddenly made Harley regret her questioning. The woman still wore a smile on her face, but her eyes were even more intensely pained than usual, and the little laugh that escaped sounded softer and more tremulous than a colt's whinny.

Her hands were shaking a little.

"I can...get a little catatonic. Disassociate." Dry swallow. "Just if I get too stressed or something. I usually find my way out eventually." This spoken very quickly, almost unintelligibly.

She wouldn't meet Harley's eyes. Those hands still shook as she busied herself winding up the vacuum's cord.

Harley was suddenly taken back to her interning days, before she got her first job at Arkham. She'd entered that internship full of determination, to shove it in Mom's face that she could succeed in a serious profession.

Natalie Quinzel had been your typical stage mother, a former circus contortionist who decided to give it all up when successful chiropractor Isaac Quinzel proposed. She was determined her gymnastic prodigy daughter would go to the Olympics.

Those dreams were shattered when Harley was banned from competing after attacking one of the judges with a stolen baton.

Harley had seethed and stewed following her mother's ballistic tirade at her misbehaving daughter.

_You don't have one serious, sensical bone in your stupid, stupid body. This was your one chance, Harleen. And you blew it. You'll never amount to anything now._

Sitting grounded - grounded, at age sixteen! - in her bedroom, Harley grew steadily more determined to prove Natalie wrong. She reached out for one of her Ann Rule books.

She selected one of many from a large pile of true crime books stacked by her bed, each one analyzing a different disturbed mind, different men who changed the world they lived in with unique, twisted crimes against humanity.

Harley never questioned her own fixation with them. But she had an epiphany as she read a quote from one of Bundy's shrinks: _this is what I should be doing. Reaching out to the Bundys, the Gacys, the Zodiacs of the world! Get my name in print when I finally get through to them, hear their stories, their _real _stories!_

She smirked as she imagined Natalie's face as Harleen won a Pulitzer, a Nobel, for her work with diseased minds.

_Nothing serious or sensical about me, huh, ma? I'll show ya._

At first she tried journalism, but psychology courses were what really enraptured her. There you could actually focus on the ecstatic minds of those you really wanted to study.

She had watched _Silence of the Lambs_ over fifty times. When her notebook wasn't full of her psychology notes, they were full of Hannibal x Clarice fanfiction.

She'd earned better grades than she ever had before in these courses, and she'd always been an excellent student when she bothered to focus. This combined with her gymnastics scholarship (the Olympic board didn't have a say in that, thank you very much) took her to college, where her flashing smile and readiness to earn extra credit got her easy a's from infatuated professors.

But she hadn't been equipped for that internship.

Her work hadn't actually taken place at Thomas Wayne Memorial. Instead she was assigned to the clinic most Thomas Memorial patients were first screened at before consulting doctors decided whether or not they deserved placement there.

Harley's job was to help assess at screenings, to observe.

And what she'd seen there tapped into an empathy, a pity, a _disgust_ she hadn't expected.

These people weren't brilliant, controlled Hannibal Lecters, whose motivations and methods defied all understanding.

They weren't her treasured extreme personalities.

No, these people were incredibly broken, stunned, yet at the same time so _average_.

She'd felt an impatient itch almost the moment she stepped through the doors to the lobby full of people mumbling to themselves, a woman crying and pacing in the corner, an old man with his head hidden in his hands.

She didn't belong there.

A quick note to a former professor, mentioning casually how interested his wife would be in their former correspondence, and she got what she needed. Her acceptance into Arkham saved her.

There, all her dreams came true in the form of one charming, angelic, lost little boy in the form of a handsome mad clown.

He'd taught her it didn't matter what Natalie and the rest of the world thought. He'd taught her that life _shouldn't_ be taken seriously, no matter what.

Harley sighed dreamily then reluctantly brought herself back to Jeannie in the library.

Here was a sad creature so similar to the poor folks she left behind at the clinic, her problems so probably bland and ordinary next to the bright and colorful ones here at Arkham. Her condition was almost certainly the meek, pitiful kind Mr. J always taught Harley to deride. And yet, Mr. J seemed inexplicably affected by this woman.

Pain twisted so sharply in Harley's chest she almost gasped.

And yet at the same time, a wonderfully clever idea occurred to her. "I'm sorry, toots, them's are bad breaks. But hey!" A light proud hand at her chest. "I am a trained psychiatrist! If you ever need to talk anything over…"

_Earn her trust, get all the information you can, save Mr. J before he gets too involved…._

She frowned. She saw right away it wasn't to be. Jeannie's eyes dimmed with disappointment. The mild-mannered loony saw right through the ploy.

Her quiet sadness irritated Harley. Made her feel -

"...or not. Whatever. See ya, toots!" Harley marched away.

Jeannie stared after her a moment more before pushing the vacuum down the aisle again.

* * *

Evening. The tears were streaming uncontrollably down his face now, as he remembered, as he remembered, no, he's making it all up, but in clear everyday color like it was yesterday he saw -

_It was the Fourth of July barbeque, and he and Walter had made a run for more hot dog buns._ Independence Day was Walter Murphy's favorite holiday, and while Jack always publicly gagged at the almost-sermon Walter yearly gave to his guests about the brave boys died to keep this day what it was, he privately looked forward to the hushed look of respect and reverence on the guests' faces that would inevitably follow.

Jack was curious how Danny would take it. His family was vacationing in Spain, so Walter and Irene had invited him to room with Hal for the summer.

Right now Jack was just enjoying this pleasant stroll back from the market with his dad. Something about a long walk outside always made Walter more relaxed, more human and approachable.

He was glancing lovingly at Jack. "I know you're sick to death of hearing this, son, but your mom and I are truly proud of you. You really pulled your act together senior year, and it's paid off. This scholarship will see you to great places."

Jack shrugged and waved a hand dismissively, only to hide his glad flush. He didn't really need the scholarship, Walter and Irene had enough to see him through college. But he'd been thrilled to get it, thrilled to see the light in Walter's eyes when he won it Senior Award Night.

_He'd make them all proud. He would._

Suddenly Walter stiffened beside him. Jack saw the proud-farseeing gleam in his eyes turn to hard steel.

Jack looked where that steel was directed.

Hal and Danny were under the elm tree in the front yard. They were in each other's arms, locked in a loving kiss.

The sight was such a shock, such a jolt, so unexpected, that Jack did what he always did.

He laughed.

The boys turned around.

Jack imagined the silence between the four of them was much like the shocked hush after a gunshot.

Through the dim light of the setting sun, Jack saw Hal's Adam's apple bob up and down in his throat. He remained frozen in Danny's arms, Danny who looked at Hal questioningly.

Hal was clearly afraid, and Jack had never seen that before, so now he was afraid, too.

Yet he relaxed the barest amount when Walter's quiet voice beside him was the same even tone as always. "Jacky, you go take the buns inside, now. Take over at the grill."

Yes, Jack would have felt okay about everything, except Walter's eyes were still glued on Hal, and the steel had only grown.

Still, as Jack worked on the dogs and burgers as the neighborhood guests laughed and chatted in the backyard, he talked himself down.

Okay, so Hal's gay. Or bi or whatever. Who cares? After all, Jack considered himself basically a pansexual, who maybe more than once had a drunk makeout sesh with Sam, and had a brief fling with Lillian, the one openly trans girl at Fort Joseph before she transferred to Gotham.

However, he in no way had ever thought about revealing any of that to Walter.

Walter who always worked in Reagan quotes into his Fourth of July speeches. Walter who sang the loudest during Church services.

So seeing his Golden Boy in the arms of Danny….

Jack shivered but then took in a deep breath, flipped the burgers, squished them with his spatula. His shoulders jerked upward as some of the Maynard kids set off firecrackers near the fence.

All right, the old man will probably give Hal hell. Lecture him, maybe even yell at him a bit.

But it would all get worked out. Jack wasn't entirely sure about Walter's stance on homosexuality; when it came to anything vaguely political, Jack made sure to quickly change the subject with a joke around his father.

However, there was one thing he knew to the very core of his being, something that was the very bedrock of his life - Walter loved his sons more than anything. He would always stand by them. He would never let them down. Never.

When Walter finally walked back into the barbeque, Hal wasn't with him. Walter put a soft hand on Jack's back, dismissing him from grill duty.

As Jack made the kids laugh by pretending a hot dog was his nose, he kept his eye on Walter's back.

There was no way to read that sturdy, unmoving wall.

He noticed Irene shoot questioning glances around the yard from where she hovered by the drink table, obviously wondering where her oldest son was. At one point she whispered something in Walter's ear, but she quickly clammed up when he glared at her.

After a while, Jack looked up toward Hal's bedroom. The light was on.

Noticing Irene was too distracted knocking a few back with her book club ladies and Walter was still busy at the grill, Jack slipped away upstairs.

Hal's door was halfway open. Jack peeked in.

Something clenched in his chest when he saw the open suitcase on the bed. Danny was nowhere to be seen.

"Hally lad?"

Hal turned around, and Jack sucked in a breath at the unfamiliar childlike gleam of sorrow in his brother's eyes.

Had he...had he been crying?

"Jack," was all Hal said.

The brothers stared at each other, then their shoes.

At last Jack asked, "What are you doing? I know the old man probably gave you hell, but" -

"He's kicking me out, Jack." Jack felt like he had walked straight into an iceberg.

"What?"

Hal shoved different articles of clothing into his suitcase. "It's all finished, Jack. All of it. He says I'm no longer his son. He says I can kiss my senior year at college goodbye, that he will no longer pay and is even repossessing the convertible."

Again, Jack did what he always did: he laughed. "Oh, I get it. You're getting back at me for giggling like an idiot just now when I saw you and Danny. Some joke, Hal. Brilliant."

Hal stopped packing, head down.

A firework popped somewhere outside.

The truth hit Jack.

"He...he can't really be doing this to you, Hal."

Hal turned around, and yep, there were tears in his superhero big brother's eyes. "I've got no choice, Jack. I'm going to enlist in the military. At least that way I can finish my education, and hell, maybe some time away will…" he shrugged. "Maybe it won't soften the old man, but at least I can prove myself, in some way. Prove to him I'm still a man."

Hal, Hal in the military. Jesus.

"You're gonna keep in touch, right?"

A grim, sad smile from Hal. "Not for a while, kid. I don't want to get you in trouble, either." All at once Hal pulled Jack fiercely to him, touched his forehead to his. "I love you, Jack. I love you so much."

Jack could say nothing. Something terrible was lodged in his throat, and he could only emit strange gasping noises.

"Hey," Hal said in a conspiratorial whisper, "Remember to make sure the punches stay punchlines, all right?"

The brothers hugged.

Then Hal was gone.

Jack stood in the empty room, staring at the swim trophies and medals Hal had left behind on his display case.

Two months later, just a week before Jack was due to start at Gotham U, they received word that their beloved son and brother Harold Murphy had died during a drill gone wrong.

* * *

The laugh was a great big belly laugh as Jack stared at the floor of his cell between his legs.

The edges of his vision were that crimson shade again, but it wasn't as fun, wasn't as freeing.

How could these memories be so real, so unquestioningly something that happened, but those other memories be real, too?

And all throughout a young girl on a bike, waving at him and even winking at him.

The same woman he'd seen wiping windows here in Arkham, expression far away and with such an ancient mourning about her features.

The hair on his arms and neck suddenly stood on end as he thought of the darkness outside, and the schoolhouse just at the edge of Arkham's property line.

_Perhaps, Jokey my lad, it's time to do some research on this mysterious dame._

Because he was convinced now.

Someone was trying to pull one over on the Clown Prince of Crime.

Perhaps Crane had modified his Scarecrow gas or whatever his rip off of Joker's laughing gas was, and had decided to experiment on the clown - the coward still wasn't over that wedgie Joker gave him a while back, probably.

Or maybe Hugo Strange was back in town, eager to break down Joker's psyche.

Could be Tetch had perfected his fun little mind control chips.

Pitiful idiots. Pathetic.

He'd show them.

Yes, they'd succeeded in pulling some maudlin emotions out of him about this chick they must have planted in his mind - but he'd show them who the real master of fear was.

He'd discover all there was to know about her.

Then he'd kill her.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Some over-the-top brutal violence ahead! We finally find out all about Jeannie's One Bad Day.

* * *

Jeannie sat at her makeshift vanity, trying to work out some tangles in her damp hair. She was back to showering at night. She was just too worn-down to bathe in the morning. She needed that extra sleep.

Her dreams were terrible lately.

A shaky sigh and she put down her brush. She looked into the stained mirror. Something about her long confinement away from the workaday world, along with those wide, skittish eyes made her look younger than her almost thirty-four years - except for that tired, melancholy cast, which somehow made her expression look far older.

_Fourteen going on ninety, that's what I look like._

She put down the brush and stared at her rumpled bed things. She was putting off the inevitable. She couldn't get away with pacing through the night anymore. She had a weak excuse for a job now. She needed to go to bed.

* * *

From the black-and-white monitor set, Joker wondered idly what Harley had been talking to _her_ about earlier that day in the library. Poor Pooh must feel awfully neglected by Joker during this recent mania of his. He recognized the jealous strain in her face from the screen, in her too deliberately casual posture while talking to Jeannie.

Oh well, them's the breaks! Ordinarily when brewing up some wonderfully daft scheme, he'd leave the research and more boring schematics to her. Give his henchwench this, she was a dedicated little worker bee.

However, all this was too personal.

He pushed aside the limp hand of the security guard that was lying near the control comm.

Three other guards were passed out in various positions, some still laughing weakly, all of their faces in varying degrees of paralysis-pinched grimaces.

The guy in the corner might have been allergic to the gas. He looked dead.

Joker clicked through the past month's footage, when Jeannie started working at Arkham. His eye was out for any evidence she wasn't real flesh and blood, or else maybe a hired moll paid to drive him even crazier than usual.

So far, nothing out of the ordinary. Just a sad woman who smiled too much to compensate, who worked diligently enough, but had moments when the smile would fade and she'd stare off to some unseen point in the distance, duster mid-air.

He ignored the ache at the sight, turned it into a contemptuous snicker instead.

He looked away from the screen to the files in front of him, files that were helpfully labeled "TWM Outreach Patients" in the cabinet.

Even if her picture - and yes, it was her, it was her - hadn't been attached, her file would still be easy to find. The only female in the group and all.

Jeannie Janowski.

_Barely suppressed nervous laughter in her voice as she pronounced the words, "I, Jeannie Janowski, take" -_

Her case file was quite voluminous.

_Well, let's start at the beginning!_

The red smile plastered on his face shrunk with each sentence.

All throughout he heard her humming in the kitchen, singing in that low happy voice, _You put the lime in the coconut…_

He heard her and saw her sunny face as he read -

Born and raised in her grandparents' tenement in Bludhaven, youngest of three. Father Leon Janowski was a dock worker who'd died when a crate came loose from the crane when she was just a few weeks old. Her mother, Anita Stefanelli Janowski, after years of living in poverty and looking forward to more as a broke widow, had a breakdown and left the children with their father's parents. She hitched a ride to San Francisco, looking for work as a showgirl -

"_She died when I was fourteen, just before I started my first year at Fort Joseph," Jeannie explained as they made their way to the picnic spot. "Hit by a car as she was crossing the street near Haight-Ashbury."_

_Jack studied her face. "I'm sorry."_

_She shrugged a little, gracefully curling up on the blanket Jack spread out. "I never saw her. Never knew her. Grandma and Grandpa are the only parents I've ever really known."_

_A moment of silence as they took out the plates, passed around the scones. At last a little wrinkle in her brow as she stared at Jack with a frank question in her face. "I was a little sad, sure, but beyond that I can't say her death affected me that much. Does that make me a bad person?"_

_They'd only been dating a month, but already Jack knew. She was it for him. The way she looked at him now, her eyes going directly into his soul like no one's eyes ever had, made him realize that the love he thought he'd felt for anyone else in his life was a mirage, an imitation of the real thing._

_He cupped her cheek in his hand, and the eyes that answered her glance were warmer and more sincere than they'd ever been._

"_Worse than Hitler," he whispered._

_And the machine gun laugh exploded from Jeannie, making her double over and fall on her side, unable to staunch her wheezing_ -

Joker grabbed a nearby wastebasket and emptied the contents of his stomach into it.

Right. Carry on:

...looking for work as a showgirl, until fourteen years later she met Neil Dugan, a traveling salesman from Minnesota who had inherited his father's ranch and accompanying farm. They married five months later, after Anita's conversion to his evangelist church. Dugan insisted that his wife bring her children from Bludhaven to Minnesota to live on his family's homestead. He decided to work on the farm full-time with his new family.

Joker's hands started inexplicably shaking, a staticky sound rushing in his ears as he read….

* * *

Jeannie dreamt of Neil Dugan in her little room in the schoolhouse.

Unlike in fiction, the dream was not a straight flashback of the events that ruined her life. In reality, the images in dreams are fragmented, dashes of red paint on an already abstract canvas.

If she did dream like in the stories, it would have begun when Gran and Grandpa knocked on her door almost twenty years ago.

Jeannie was fourteen, lying on her stomach on top of her bed, Patty snoring beside her. She was in the middle of _W.C. Fields By Himself_, humming along to The Ronettes on her dad's old record player.

She giggled at the sudden rhythmic knocks on her door. Her grandfather's thick Polish accent sang out, "_I dream of Jeannie with the big ol' smile…."_

"_Entres-vous!"_

She was surprised when they both came in, surprised enough to actually sit up and shut her book. Patty opened her sleep-blurred brown eyes, ears perked up questioningly. Usually only one of Jeannie's grandparents would summon her if dinner was ready, or if one of her friends was calling, or if she conveniently forgot to do the dishes.

Her smile slowly faded as she took in Gran's expression. Had she...had she been crying?

They both wore brave faces. "Love," Gran crooned, "Guess who your grandfather and I just talked to on the phone?"

"Um...the pope?" Fourteen-year-old Jeannie was quite the wit, according to her and her loving grandparents. Her siblings were not quite so much in agreement.

"No, baby. Your mother."

A small click in her throat as she tried swallowing.

"Oh."

Grandpa sank down onto the bed, laid a chummy hand on her shoulder. The twinkle of his eyes, the otter-like spread of his bushy mustache were what comfort looked like to Jeannie. He'd been the one to name her, after _I Dream of Jeannie_, the TV show that taught him English as a young immigrant in Bludhaven.

At the time, her mother had apparently been too depressed to name her. Post-partum: that, and her husband - Jeannie's father, Janusz and Molly Janowski's son - was in the hospital a few floors down, in a coma since the crate landed on him.

He died two weeks later.

"_Kochanie_," Janusz said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "I know you don't know your mother like Sally and Andy do. You might be a little…_co to za słowo?_...ah! _Bitter_ that she's not been around so much."

"At all," Jeannie said tonelessly, staring at her hand as it stroked Patty's silky back. Back and forth, back and forth. "I don't know her at all."

She was only a few months old when Anita left.

She closed her eyes as her grandmother cradled her head in her hands. If her grandfather's face was what comfort looked like, her grandmother's warm, feather-light hands were what comfort _felt_ like. "She wants to know you now."

Jeannie went cold. "Why?"

She looked at her grandmother. From Molly Blake Janowski, Jeannie inherited her small, slight stature and her wide smile.

In a very quiet, sing-song voice, Molly said, "She's married now." More tears filled Molly's eyes, but they would not fall.

Lightning, up and down Jeannie's spine. "Married?"

A deep, reassuring chuckle from Janusz. "And they want to come see you!"

Jeannie was only fourteen, but she was no dummy. She knew the cheery note in Janusz's voice was too forced, and Molly's eyes were swimming all around the room, as if she couldn't bear to look the situation in its face.

"Is that all?"

Suddenly Molly hugged her to her small chest, tightly. She still managed to keep her voice light and sing-songy as she said, "And take you and your brother and sister to live with them."

Jeannie's arms went limp at her sides, a gutted rag doll.

"But…" she licked her lips. "But isn't...isn't she working in San Francisco? I mean...I thought she couldn't afford us…"

That was what she'd been told her whole life. Gran and Gramps always jumped in with rushed, heartfelt explanations when Sally made some snide reference to them being unwanted orphans: _no, no, your mother would love to have you, but after sending us a check each month, she simply can't afford to have you in San Francisco, she lives in a little studio apartment, no fit place for her children, etc._

"Ah," Janusz said, cheerful note more resounding than ever. "Her new husband, he is a successful man! Inherited his father's farm in Minnesota!"

"_Minnesota?_" Jeannie's heart sank. "That's...a long way from Bludhaven."

There was a hard, adamant light in Janusz's eyes. "Yes, finally you get away from the city! Spend some time out in the country!"

"What do Sally and Andy think?"

Neither of her grandparents would answer that.

Instead Janusz slapped his knees, stood, and followed his wife to the door. "Anyway, you better get packing, young lady! They'll be here this weekend!"

Jeannie stood as well, panicking. "But -" _What about you two? What about school? What about my friends? Who will walk Patty? What about_ -

"No buts, young lady!" A joking schoolmarm finger wave. "Get to it!"

Only when he turned away to close her door behind them did Jeannie see her grandfather's face crumble.

* * *

Jeannie felt ridiculous sitting sandwiched between Sally and Andy on her grandparents' old patched up couch that Saturday. They were all so still, dressed so formally, that she couldn't help but think they looked like they were all attending a funeral rather than meeting their mother and stepfather for the first time.

Sally especially was in a rotten mood. She had stomped around the apartment the entire time they packed, fuming that this was fucking up her senior year, her plans to try to get into culinary or art or beauty school. Andy was mostly quiet in his stony sixteen-year-old way, difficult to read except for glum.

They were the only ones with any memories of their mother. Jeannie felt like an outsider as they would meet each other's eyes whenever Jansuz and Molly would try convincing all three of them what a wonderful woman their mother was, what a good thing this move would be.

Whenever Jeannie tried tentatively asking her siblings their opinions about all this, they'd simply snort and share those secret, knowing glances.

Jeannie of course had seen pictures of her mother, and could see that's where she and Sally got their basic face shape and coloring from. Sally, however, had been the one to inherit her good looks. Andy looked more like pictures of Jeannie's father she'd seen: smaller of stature like Jeannie and Molly, but with darker hair, eyes a starkly vivid shade of blue.

Sally was the oldest and fit that role. She was the headstrong, opinionated, protective leader of the trio. Andy, meanwhile, definitely fit the role of the middle child, often melodramatic and indecisive.

Jeannie guessed she fit the youngest child model, since she was a bit spacey, and while not outright spoiled over the others, more easily forgiven for forgetting to do her chores or only finishing them haphazardly.

Yet they all worked well together, in this family unit led by their grandparents. How would this change in Minnesota of all places?

Here came their answer: a knock at the front door. Jeannie's hands fidgeted at her sides as Patty woofed.

"Welcome!" Came Jansuz's booming voice, allowing in the two visitors. Jeannie heard the intake of Sally and Andy's breaths beside her as a woman came marching over to them.

This, this was their mother, who no longer resembled the woman Jeannie had seen in photographs. She looked older, of course, but it was more than that. Her long hippie hair was now cropped short; conservative, sexless. She wore large square-rimmed glasses. Her dark navy blue dress's collar was buttoned all the way up her throat.

She looked for all the world like a missionary.

Jeannie saw a little bit of Andy in her smile. "My babies," she whispered, taking each of their hands in hers. She was beaming warmly, but Jeannie felt shy at the penetrating yet numb gleam staring out of her eyes. "My lambs."

A small, hairy hand on her shoulder, a nasal twang: "'_See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.'"_

Jeannie looked into the eyes of her stepfather.

Neil Dugan was of medium height, a slightly stout man with a receding hairline. His brown mustache was smaller than her grandfather's. His small hazel eyes had a similar penetrating gleam to their mother's, but deeper, harder.

Jeannie never knew that a person could have an air both magnetic and - somehow, and hard to put one's finger on - repulsive as well.

His presence seemed to dwarf the rest of them. She noticed that he and her mother wore matching gold crosses around their necks. He crouched down and spoke to all three of them as though they were small children in a congregation. "Well, lambs of God? Are you ready for your first pilgrimage?"

His fervent words were lightened only by his quick wink.

The three Janowski children said nothing, struck dumb.

* * *

Jeannie sat beside her stepfather on the plane to Minnesota. He said not one word to her the entire flight. He leaned back in his seat, his eyes closed, his smile serene as he hummed "Be Not Afraid" and occasionally whispered to the lord. Jeanne would lean over to meet the glances of her siblings across the aisle. They sat by their mother, whose hands were folded neatly on her lap, staring ahead with starry, empty eyes.

In her sibling's faces, she saw the same expression she must also wear: incredulity, unsure whether to laugh or scream.

* * *

The farm was beautiful, Jeannie couldn't lie to herself. It looked like something out of a storybook, classic and quaint in the middle of those tall Eastern Hemlocks (the second the plane landed and they loaded into Neil's car, he couldn't stop talking then, pointing out the names of each tree they passed).

When her feet landed on the ground outside the car, and she felt the slight chill in the air, that is where Jeannie's memory became spotty. The landscape collapsed around her and only bits and jagged pieces of chipped paint remained on the canvas.

She remembered the first prayer at the dinner table, the tears coursing down her mother's face as she confessed what a sinner she'd been, how cruel and evil to abandon her children to pursue a career in exotic dancing. She was eternally grateful that dear, saintly Neil saved her immortal soul the day he hovered outside the dance hall and accosted her, telling her that Jesus loved her still.

Jeannie remembered the fatherly smile of satisfaction on Neil's face.

* * *

She remembered entering her room for the first time and finding all the long sleeved dresses stacked there on her bed. They looked just like the ones her mother wore.

* * *

She remembered the long hike Neil dragged her and Sally and Andy on, where he alternated between pointing out the different bird breeds flying above the trees and quoting the Bible on the beauty and sanctity of nature, God's true kingdom on Earth.

As hokey as his words were, Jeannie felt touched by the scene around her. She'd never been out in nature much. She decided she loved it. There was something mystical and unreal about the way the sunlight sifted through the gigantic branches: trees like the legs of some fairytale giant that Janusz used to tell her about when she was a child.

As Andy keeled over from allergy-induced sneezing, and Sally trudged moodily ahead as if this were a death march, Jeannie felt a warm hand on her shoulder.

Neil was smiling proudly at her.

His eyes were so friendly, understanding. "Jeannie, I have a hunch that you and I are kindred spirits. You look just like I did when my papa first bought this place. I also grew up in the city, in Minneapolis. It wasn't a great part of town, I tell you. But my papa worked hard, taught us nightly from the Bible, and although he wasn't always a sweet man, he was a strong, upright man. He accomplished what so many dream of but never see come to fruition. Why? Because he never faltered in his belief in the Almighty." He spread his hand out to the woods around them, to the birds singing in the air. A rabbit hopped by. "And look how He rewarded my father, Jeannie." He squeezed her shoulder.

She grinned shyly at him. "I'm sure glad it worked out, Neil."

He mussed her hair. "You're a mighty nice gal, Miss Jeannie." He leaned in and whispered. "Don't tell those others, but you're my favorite lamb of the flock." A wink.

She giggled. It felt nice, being singled out this way. It felt nice, knowing all that about him. He was still a bit of a weirdo, but out here in the forest, where for once he left most of the sermonizing at home, he seemed so much warmer and more human.

He stretched out his hand to hers, to help her up the next steep climb.

She accepted his hand happily.

* * *

She remembered a month into their stay Neil's eyes turning white like an attacking shark's as he slapped Sally after she absentmindedly let a _damn _slip from her mouth while trying to collect eggs from an irritable hen.

* * *

She remembered the line of high-pitched profanity that ironically came out of Neil's mouth when Andy chopped up carrots for dinner in a way Neil disapproved of.

* * *

She remembered waking up in the middle of the night, unsure if the low quick murmuring she heard was in her head or not, until she peeked out her window and saw Neil's dark shape below, rubbing his arms and pacing back and forth, back and forth, every once in a while a high-pitched _FUCK_ or _JESUS_ flying out of his mouth.

* * *

She remembered her mother barely moving from her armchair in the living room their entire stay, her face always serene and empty. The few times Jeannie or Sally or Andy tried to broach any topic with her about the past, about their father or what her life had been like all these years, she'd only turn glassy eyes to the ceiling and quote from the scriptures about a fallen woman repenting.

That is, when Neil didn't overhear, and didn't step in and say so for her.

* * *

Although it hurt her to, Jeannie remembered most clearly the pow-wow she at last had with her siblings in Sally's room toward the end of summer. The last straw: that evening, Neil announced, with their mother's limp hand in his, that the three lambs would be homeschooled by none other than him come September.

Her once headstrong sister had lost her flirtatious arrogant look and instead had the look of a hardened pitbull in her face. Andy looked shrunken in, almost desiccated.

Jeannie could only guess how she herself looked.

Sally spoke in a tense, rapid whisper. "This is absolute crazy bullshit. This is beyond some televangelist trying to save us from ourselves. This is...This is cult shit."

Andy contributed nothing to the conversation, chewing his thumbnail as he sat cross-legged on Sally's bed. Every once in a while he dared a scared shush, but nothing more.

Jeannie didn't contribute much of anything either, other than the occasional nervous, stressed giggle, which usually prompted said shushing from Andy.

As usual, it was Sally who had any sort of plan. "The train tracks are only a couple miles away, through the trees and up that big hill by the river. Remember when we went on that hike last month and saw the open boxcars? That's our only real chance. I hear the trains every night. If we just head out a quarter after two in the morning…."

And like the simple lambs Neil often compared them to, Jeannie and Andy nodded along, agreeing immediately.

Jeannie's favorite books were _The Boxcar Children_ series, after all. She also had images of _Sullivan's Travels_ in mind. She wondered if she should go full Veronica Lake and dress up as a boy.

This could be an adventure.

The next night at dinner, Neil was especially gregarious. They all forced laughs as he sang some hymns and added little puns in-between, winking, winking.

He could be so likable. So warm and friendly.

The strong grip of his hand as he helped Jeannie up the hill, the proud smile on his face, rang in her head as she watched him. _He's not a bad guy, really. Just a little sick. He needs help. Maybe in a few years…_

They ate roast beef and drank some warm cider from apples that Neil churned himself. For all his faults, they couldn't deny their stepfather was an excellent cook and farmer.

All of a sudden, a great drowsiness overtook Jeannie. The dining room swayed as if she was on a boat. She wondered if it was this swaying in her vision that made Sally and Andy look like their heads were lolling about as well, or if they too felt the same urge to just close their eyes….

The last thing Jeannie saw before the warm wave pushed her into unconsciousness was Neil's blurred face, smile lingering. The last thing she heard was her mother's voice, at last an urgent note rising there. "What did you do to them, Neil? _Neil?_"

* * *

When Jeannie and the others awoke, it was quite late, or quite early. She couldn't tell.

All she knew was that the three of them were tied up in their chairs. A scream she didn't realize was coming from her filled the room as she saw the bullet hole in her mother's forehead.

But maybe the scream came out more like a whimper. Whatever drug he'd slipped them still had a faint but firm grip on her. She was seeing everything through a thick layer of fog. A blur in her vision.

She heard answering whimpers beside her. Sally and Andy were coming to.

Neil waited patiently until they were more aware, his shotgun placed on the table in front of him. He let them whimper and moan at the sight of their dead mother. His lips were creased, as if this punishment were more painful to him than to them.

Then without saying a word he pulled out a small tape recorder. He clicked the button. Sally's voice, tinny from the little speaker: "_This is absolute crazy bullshit. This is beyond some televangelist trying to save us from ourselves. This is...This is cult shit."_

They were all aware enough now that simultaneously, their hearts pounded dumbly in their chests.

Neil looked so pained, so disappointed. His mouth screwed up like a child trying not to cry. "I tried, tried so hard." His voice broke. "Tried to lead you away from depravity like I did your poor mother. Don't worry, children. I wouldn't let her suffer long." He grasped her limp hand as he had so many times at that very table.

"But like lambs to the slaughter, the only lesson you all will truly learn is by the avenging hand of one of God's own."

So saying, he picked up the ax they hadn't noticed leaning against his chair.

Jeannie's soul left her body, hovered over the scene that followed.

The strangest thing, which is what she did dream of now, was the impulse that overtook her.

The impulse to laugh.

She might have. She might have laughed, ceaselessly, as Neil, sobbing, began.

Luckily, she either fainted or trauma permanently blocked out the worst of it. When she woke, though - there they were.

She was covered in her own vomit as Neil untied her. "My lamb, my youngest, my sweetest, I want you at least to see the sunrise as I free you from this fleshly prison."

She couldn't remember very clearly how her noodle-like legs got her from the kitchen table to the field outside, to that meadow near the trees. Neil, whose thick sweaters hid wiry muscles capable of much, dragged her there as if she weighed nothing.

When the ground hit her knees she woke from the Blur with a start.

She turned bewildered eyes to Neil. When he gave her that rueful-half smile, the ax stained with her sibling's blood glistening in the moonlight, a true scream escaped her and she was on her feet, running. Running toward the trees.

_If I just don't scream anymore, he won't be able to track me._ Track her, like prey.

She wasn't sure if the footsteps she heard behind her, the panting breath, were his and real, or only her hysterical imaginings.

She dove into the trees. Her hair got caught in the branches. She lurched forward, not caring if parts of her scalp came off in the process. All that existed in her was to run.

_What time is it what time have I missed the train it's so dark_

The trees remained fairytale giants, but darker, grimmer, gaunter, like in the tales Janusz would only share with them on Halloween.

She'd always feared the monstrous fighting trees from _Wizard of Oz,_ and something hysterical in the back of her mind wondered when one of them would grab her and scold her for picking the nonexistent apples off their branches.

But her small stature worked to her advantage. She was faster than Neil was, she could get through.

She was yards away when she heard the train whistle. A huge crash of limbs and crackle of leaves behind her. No, she wasn't imagining anything. He was right behind her. And he had an ax, so he hacked away at the brush and bramble, nearing her.

She could feel the train's vibrations on the ground beneath her. She was near the clearing.

She felt a sweaty hand clasp at her collar, her hair.

One last horrible scream and she jumped, tore through one last bush of thorns. Her shirt ripped as she escaped his grip.

The train was slow, and Jeannie would never stop running, her lungs were about to explode, and her stomach was contracting painfully, and all she saw was red and heard -

She fumbled forward. Oh god. Oh god none of the cars are open. None -

A voice from the tracks! "Hey! Hey, girlie! You okay?"

A man leaning out one of the cars, dust coating his face and patched jacket.

She laughed and ran and jumped and he reached out to her.

She almost lost her footing, and out of the corner of her eyes she saw the ax swinging. It clipped at her leg.

With an almost inhuman strength, the man within pulled her to safety. She heard clapping inside: there were two other men there. They'd seen what was happening; they helped him pull her in.

She watched portly, balding, bloody Neil shrinking in the distance, into the shadows, holding his ax in dumb disappointment, like a child a beloved broken toy.

The comforting pats on her back and gentle questions ceased as she kept laughing, shrieking, laughing, laughing laughing

Jeannie's eyes opened.

No, she didn't bolt upright. That only happened in fiction, too.

She was lying on her bed in the schoolroom, staring irritated at the ceiling. She was almost bored with her fear. She was exhausted.

Yes, that's where the movie would have ended. The triumphant final girl, safe with her unexpected allies, the homeless and destitute in that rickety boxcar.

Would the sequel have dared show what happened after? Her rescuers shrinking away from her, the conductor finding her like some small demon sitting in the middle of the train car, caked in her sibling's blood, her own vomit and shit? The plucky heroine gone mute except for laughter, delivered to her grandparents like a dazed fawn hit by a car, save for that ceaseless scream-laughter? Would it have shown the hospital room where her grandmother lay, from the stroke she never woke up from, from the shock of what happened? Would it show her grandfather's steady decline into dementia, until he ended up living where he was now, in the Gotham City Nursing Home?

Would the movie show the months immediately after the incident, where Jeannie would wander aimlessly around her grandparents' apartment? Pulling her hair out, bashing her head against the walls, laughing, laughing?

She'd been institutionalized by the time of Dugan's trial. He dwelt now in a place not dissimilar to Arkham in Minnesota, never eligible for parole.

Loyal Patty, who had followed her mad, mute, yet laughing young mistress around the apartment and licked away her tears, was adopted into another family. Jeannie never saw her again.

For the sake of her own dignity, Jeannie hoped any filmed adaptation would never show her struggles throughout adolescence and adulthood. There was the breakdown her first week of sophomore year (her freshman year spent in the hospital). Neither Mr. Morgan or the students could tell if her high shrieks were laughs or screams. She then quieted and turned unresponsive when Mr. Morgan gently shook her from where she coiled in on herself in her seat. That was the episode that kept her from ever going to school again.

Would they show her third breakdown, in the middle of her third office job at age twenty-five, when the filing was backed up, and Becky seemed annoyed with her lack of progress, and Bill wouldn't turn off his goddamn fucking Christian rock -

Ripping up each piece of paper, laughing in Becky's face, tears and then nothing until she woke up in Thomas Wayne Memorial.

The years in-between, when the Blur descended - oh, the Blur, when a veil like one of those old Vaseline smears on camera lenses aiming to make beautiful ingenues look even more dewey-eyed and youthful filled her vision, and she'd wake up and it would be a week later, a year and a half, and then she lost count….

She doubted there would ever be a film adaptation. In the current climate, what was so special about one family murder from the boring farmland of Minnesota?

The journalists had tried to print her name in the articles following Dugan's arrest, but luckily Police Chief Gordon had been tipped off and was able to secure Jeannie's rights. She was now a resident of Thomas Wayne Memorial Psychiatric Hospital, juvenile division, which meant she was in Gordon's jurisdiction and under his protection. She remained anonymous in the papers, even back in Minnesota.

And so the years rolled by, as they say.

Jeannie blinked. She looked at her clock. Only 10:00.

Turning the volume down very low, so as not to wake up Reggie and especially Inam who was ever sensitive to noise, she put on a "You Bet Your Life" on the record player and then lay back down.

* * *

The file fell from Joker's hands.

All he saw was Jeannie turning from the stove, the apron tied loosely around her belly only barely starting to show now, and smiling her greeting. She'd put on an episode of "You Bet Your Life" and turned it down as Jack told her he'd just quit.

She massaged the back of his neck as he sat at the kitchen table, hiding his face in his hands. "_You did the right thing, Jack. Life's too short, y'know? Life's too short for this bullshit."_

That Jeannie, this Jeannie?

This Jeannie forced to watch as Sally and Andy were-

"_Andy and Sally are coming to dinner," Jeannie said. Jack looked up, more nervous than he cared to admit._

_Sally was a tigress when it came to Jeannie, especially now that the grandparents were getting older and in an assisted living facility. Did she know her baby sister's no-good husband had quit his job with Jeannie three months pregnant? Sally already had a rotten view of men, given her two failed marriages that left her with four wild children to look after by herself. Jack only vaguely remembered her from high school - Sally always kept to her own small gang of goths and stoners, and Jack hadn't even realized she'd been related to his Machine Gun Laugh Jeannie. He hadn't even been aware of quiet Andy's existence ._

"_Hey, come on," Jeannie said, shaking him by the shoulders. She'd seen the anxiety in his pinched face. "They know what kind of stress you've been under. They'll understand."_

_Jack wasn't sure. "You think so?" God, he wanted a drink._

"_I mean, I've still got my job, after all. And if things get too tight, Andy just got a promotion. I bet"-_

"_Babe, you know I don't" -_

"_Yes, yes, your dumb ol' masculine pride, I haven't forgotten. But hey," she squeezed his hand. Her sunrise smile made all the bad, maddening things in life seem so far away and unimportant. "We're all family now. Family takes care of each other. And all that other sappy horseshit." Big shit-eating grin._

His fist curled, but it still wouldn't stop shaking.

He was feeling something for someone else.

He hated it.

His grim smile grew as he raised his head.

_Maybe it's time to finish the job Neil Dugan started._

But there was something more melancholy that urged him out into the night, toward the schoolhouse.


	6. Chapter 6

Jeannie was just starting to drift off again into an easier sleep, lulled by Groucho's interplay with his guests.

"_Now, get the next answer right or you're out of the game."_

"_Well, now that we know the answer to the last question, could you ask that again?"_

Then suddenly she was pushed straight into one of her nightmares. Her door's lock popped and for once the hinges swung silently open. The Joker was there, silhouetted in her doorway.

The world shifted a bit underneath her, and she thought she heard Neil singing to the trees outside.

She leapt out of bed. Her hair was down and plastered against her skin. So was her nightgown.

He was suddenly paralyzed by a burst of lust.

He settled for cackling unsteadily.

She said nothing. She didn't move.

He was out of his gray Arkham uniform and in his trademark purple suit with trenchcoat. He swept his hat off in a mock display of courtliness. "Hate to intrude on a lady's slumber, but I think it's about time you and I had a frank chat, don't you?"

His laughter was smug, dangerous.

She said nothing. She stood stiff like a soldier up for inspection.

She'd dutifully told Leland about every interaction she'd had with the man before her now. A barely contained fury froze in Leland's face that Jeannie had never seen in the doctor before. But like magic, it would smooth and fade. She'd promise that she would do what she could for Jeannie.

Turns out, that was nothing.

And now here he was.

From the moonlight streaming through the window, he saw unreadable things in her face.

She was so small, so quiet, so still and full of a heartache no one ever touched.

Joker raised an eyebrow at the laughter coming from the record player. He heard the duck quack.

_You bet your life. 'Life's too short for this bullshit.'_

He crossed over to her dresser and turned on the lamp. He flinched when he took in the small cramped room, the radiator jutting out between the bed and rickety desk where her few toiletries lay.

Her eyes followed him as he continued his slow, silent tour around her room.

He opened her closet and found only slacks and button-down shirts hanging there. Her outfits for work.

Other than those, the posters, the toiletries, the records, and the record player -

She had nothing.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. She looked away from him.

_I've got to get you out of here before the baby -_

She just kept herself from flinching at his hissing intake of breath.

When he finally began to interrogate her, his voice was far more weak and childlike than either she or he expected.

"Who are you? What do you want? What…" Eyes zipping this way and that. "What's going on?"

At last some faint signs of life as she slowly turned her head. She looked him fully in the eye, and he saw everything they ever were there, and he almost died.

"I don't know," she whispered.

His face seemed to seize in pain, and he was doubled over, head in hands.

The odd whine coming from him turned, as always, into high shrieks of laughter.

She listened for Inam, for Reggie, for whatever nurse was on duty on the first floor.

Nothing.

He lifted his head, and although the laughter was unceasing, there were tears pouring out of his eyes. "Goddammit, I don't like this. I don't like this at all." A petulant child alone in a funhouse on a dare, regretting his boldness.

He grabbed her by her arms and shook her. "What do you _want_ from me?"

The sound that came out of her wasn't a scream - it was a full gasp, like when he'd punch Harley in the stomach.

She was hovering over the woods now like a bird, watching Neil chase her through the thickening trees. Unlike in life, their figures were bright and cartoonish, and it was kind of funny. Elmer after Bugs, Wile E. after the Roadrunner, or Pepe after the cat.

Her eyes went round and empty as she took in the vague tall figure in front of her.

_He was lost in those eyes, infatuated by the mist in them, like when she'd wake up in the morning and seemed still halfway in that far-off dream world that he envied. He wanted to live there with her, wherever she kept her sanity in the reality of this dingy hole._

His laughter exploded out of his chest, almost painfully.

Her breaths came out in tiny little juts.

Her cool little hand in his.

He gave it a wrench.

She winced, her eyes doing a funny sort of fluttery thing.

"_Jeannie Janowski,"_ he said in his trademark sing-song lilt, with an added gravely undertone that gave it a sick sort of twist. "I've been reading up on you, my dear." There, he sounded more like himself again. Menacing and theatrical and clownish and intense, the perfect mix.

She said nothing. She still had that faraway sleepy look, head lolling back and forth.

All color had left her cheeks.

Time for the villainous monologue, Snidely to Nell before he tied her to the train tracks. "You've been troubling me, sweets. Giving me a severe case of deja vu. Ever get deja vu, hon?" A growl in her ear. "_I'll bet you do._"

She sleepily leaned her head back, a vertical line in her forehead as she studied him.

Something about that somber look, grave and distant, yet probing, but probing without malice or contempt -

"_Wait, where's your act tonight?"_

_Shit, she was onto him. He knew it. She had a soft, curious look in her eyes from where she fiddled with the packaging on that discount baby bottle heater that just arrived. Shit, shit._

"_West side. Look, it's gonna go pretty late. Don't wait up for me."_

_His heart hammered, wondering which way those eyes were gonna go -_

_At last she shrugged, turning back to her task. "All right, don't let your mistress wear you out any."_

_Oh thank god, she bought it, or at least wasn't going to push the topic. She probably assumed he was hatching something impractical but innocent, like the time he surprised her with scalped tickets to a hockey game, back before they were totally bankrupt. "She never does." On impulse he suddenly grabbed her to him, kissed her firmly on the temple._

"_Whoa, hey," she laughed in his arms, pushed at his chest. "Cut it out or I really will think you've got a mistress you're trying to distract me from!"_

_Not a mistress, darling, just a crime._

_Another tight squeeze. She straightened his bow tie, told him to be good at the sound check._

_A last word from him, warning her to be careful with that damn knock-off bottle warmer. His wife had many sterling qualities, but along with the occasional tactlessness, forgetfulness, and preferring _The Young Girls of Rochefort _to _Singin' In The Rain_, her wishy-washy tendency not to pay attention to outlets and cords was not one of them._

"_I promise I won't burn the building down."_

She was starting to tremble in his arms.

How...how had she gotten in the Joker's arms?

With a snarl, he pushed her away.

She fell back on her bed, propped up on her elbows. Her face was a grimace of pleading fear as she shrank away from him.

_Two and a half months earlier. He was frying eggs at the stove when he heard her cry out and heard a sickening thud. "Jeannie!"_

_Running with his heart in his throat to the bedroom._

_She was clutching her stomach on the ground, face green. "Oh god, oh god, Jack, the baby, I don't know what happened, I just - I just - I stood up too fast or something and my knees buckled -"_

The Joker never remembered feeling such all-consuming white-hot rage before, and he'd been enraged many, many times.

The darkness was descending on him, which always took the shadow of a giant bat, hovering over his hard little soul.

He advanced on her, fighting the feeling of her hand trembling in his in the hospital waiting room -

He yanked her by the hair.

She hardly seemed aware of what he was doing to her.

Her eyes were rolling up to the ceiling, the whites visible and her eyelids fluttered like some sort of ingenue's in a melodrama.

_Was she in that boxcar again?_

He'd forgotten everything about his plan. His plan to pry, force information out of her before killing her: who was she really, who was behind her presence here, Crane, Tetch, Strange, Sanchez…

_Sanchez? Who's that?_

He forgot all that, and he knew he had to kill her. Kill her now. Get it over with. He knew, somehow, that doing so would feel a lot more wrong and unbalanced than previous murders, but he had to do it he had to -

His hands wrapped around her throat.

He was about to start squeezing when she seemed to collapse from within and began to cry.

Oh god no

_Jack was exhausted. There'd been no bites today. He'd somehow managed to fuck up every set up to every joke he tried to tell, kept choking on his own spit at the microphone, and when he tried to take Jeannie's advice to turn awkward moments like that into a bit, he failed, miserably, _miserably.

_He clenched his fists, straining not to let the violent rage that pumped in his veins lately show as he opened the door -_

_His eyes widened as he saw Jeannie hunched over the kitchen table, holding on for seeming dear life, crying, crying, sobbing._

_He was at her side in an instant. "Jeannie, _Jeannie! _Is it the baby? What" -_

"_Those _bastards!" _He was startled at her vehemence. Jeannie, whom he wasn't sure if he ever saw properly cry, ever properly heard her curse out anyone unless it was under her breath when driving. Easygoing, lackadaisical Jeannie. What the absolute fuck?_

"_Honey, what -"_

"_They fired me!" This an anguished cry. "Those bastards at the playing card company. They just called. Told me their piddly-ass maternity package doesn't cover bed rest."_

_She collapsed at the table, covering her face in her hands._

"_I've fucked us over. I've absolutely fucked us over."_

_And she cried in earnest into her hands._

_Jack's curled fist now shook. He stared at his little wife, so pale and worn out, so obviously in need of rest like the doctor said. And now this -_

_His sudden, overwhelming urge to burn that fucking playing card company to the ground almost brought him to his knees._

_It was too late to ask Andy for a loan. He'd been transferred overseas, and his pay was substantially lower than anticipated._

_Sally was already struggling to make ends meet as a single mother._

_Janusz and Molly had already given them more than their fair share. The couple was just able to afford staying in that facility at the North End._

_Walter and Irene Murphy?_

No.

_So two weeks later, they moved into the squalid hell that would be the place of her death._

Joker reeled back as if struck. She fell back on the bed, moaning as if spent.

He stared at her, at her body laid out, torso heaving. Every small curve was accentuated by the damp nightgown. He saw the dark outline of her nipples. Her legs - "_Doll, you're cute as hell all over, but your sexiest feature is definitely your legs."_

"_Fresh._"

He was shambling onto the bed, leaning over her now, panting heavily.

With a strangled cry, he pressed his mouth hard against hers.

Then he roared again, throwing her clock at the record player, shutting up Groucho. Something about hearing his hero and hers joking from the record player as Joker - it disturbed him almost as much as her heaving body beneath him.

But he couldn't stop himself, something was driving him onward, onward.

His hands wandered over her breasts, down her ribcage.

God, it was all coming back….

The way she'd writhed under his hands, then clasp them and draw him in. Her slow, lazy smile.

And then, then, an ecstasy Jack never realized could really exist on earth, because no other woman had ever, and she'd gasp into his mouth, and he never before felt how good and joyful life could really be -

She was starting to soften in his arms, thawing and now melting, he knew it. She wanted this. She wanted this. She was remembering, too. She had to be - please, she had to be.

She did indeed start reacting to his touch - touch she'd never known in her years of isolation. There was something strangely familiar and right about the possessive but warm way he covered her body.

Then she screamed.

Her face when he looked at it was frozen in abject terror. She was looking at something over his shoulder, pointing.

_Neil was standing over the Joker's back and smiling at her. Reaching out to her to help her up the climb._

She wriggled away from under the man hunched over her body, crawled on the floor and folded herself inward with her back up against the wall.

The Joker had ceased to exist on her bed. The schoolroom had ceased to exist. She was in the middle of the woods, only she was cornered now, back against the cold trunk of an Eastern Hemlock. Neil was coming nearer, one hand reaching down to her.

In his other was the ax.

Joker watched as those eyes that always squinted comfort at him during the worst times were pouring out the same despair howling out of her mouth. "Go away! _Go away!_"

But not to him. To whomever she stared at out of those dead doe eyes.

Just screaming now, just keening.

"_And your wife...well, she died sir. I'm sorry."_

_Or else or else no please no -_

"_If you want to see your wife again -"_

_Then not knowing what happened after the fall._

She was keening and crying and he'd failed her.

* * *

Inam laid paralyzed on his bed, shocked awake when he heard the Joker's hyena-like shriek-laughter next-door. In Jeannie's room.

It's when he heard Jeannie scream that something finally snapped in him.

Inam was a small, light man, so he made no sound as he ventured downstairs, away from the screaming and what sounded for all the world like comforting murmuring coming from the halfway open door to Jeannie's bedroom.

He stumbled away from the madly laughing nurse writhing on the ground at the front desk.

He burst out into the cold night, practically weeping with fear. He almost tripped over Reggie, who was sitting on the front steps, rubbing his hands and with a chastened look on his face.

"Reggie, what -"

"I don't know, Inam, I don't know," Reggie's voice wavered. He rocked himself back and forth. He looked miserable with guilt. "He...he told me he saw something in me...that I had real potential that I'd never see if I didn't get outta here. He said he'd help me out, if I just...just…."

Inam felt a chill that had nothing to do with the harsh night around them. "If you just gave him the schoolhouse's security code?"

Reggie buried his face in his hands.

Inam cast him one wordless look then ran to Arkham.

* * *

Leland's heart was in her throat, and in her chest was a bubble of rage and fear as she and the security team ran to that ancient, dilapidated building on Arkham's property line.

The moonlight made it look like a forbidding mansion from a horror movie rather than a former school for troubled children.

When they burst into Jeannie's bedroom, they found her lost in the Blur again. Her eyes were glossed over and far, far away. Her lips quivered and pulled back, almost baring her teeth, and was only saved from looking like a rabid animal by the soft dreaminess in that numb, faraway gaze.

She was in the Joker's arms on the floor. He was murmuring like a father would to a child having a nightmare. His face was buried in her hair.

Leland could just make out what he was saying.

"I'll get you out of here, Jeannie, I promise, I promise."

Then the clown laughed and cried, squeezing her harder. Jeannie never reacted, never spoke, and continued staring into things no one should ever see.


	7. Chapter 7

Alfred stifled a sigh as he approached Mr. Wayne's broad back in the Batcave. His costumed employer sat lost in contemplation. The butler was confronted, once again, with monitor upon monitor showcasing the demented clown's face from various newspapers and mugshots. Always, without exception, whether after a victimless but colorful bank heist or an attempted bombing, the same dire red smile stretched that long white face.

Bruce had given Alfred the run-down of the current situation surrounding said menace to society.

Alfred knew that one of the unfortunate souls rounded up from Thomas Wayne Memorial had mysteriously taken the Clown Prince's eye, and recently been attacked by him. When the security team reached them at the schoolhouse, the poor woman was practically comatose, shaking- in the Joker's arms, of all places.

She was physically unharmed, however; although judging by the faint marks on her throat and arms, the Joker had apparently had his hands on her.

What was most perturbing to the staff was the Joker's reaction. He was practically cradling her, crying and laughing in equal turns.

He let her go of his own accord before security could touch them. His arms had fallen limply to his sides, his laugh a low gurgle.

When one of the nurses helped Ms. Janowski to her feet, the poor woman had vomited, and a security guard stepped forward and held onto her as she wretched.

At this, the Joker seemed to snap to life. He growled, pushing away the guard before anyone could react, taking Ms. Janowski in his arms again, murmuring something in her hair - something incomprehensible about a baby, bed rest, and don't worry about a thing -

It took three men to pull him off of her. He lunged the blade hidden in the heel of his spat into one of the guard's shins. When the man reflexively let go of the Joker to howl and grab at his leg, the clown shoved past the rest and escaped the schoolhouse. He disappeared into the trees outside Arkham.

Outside on the steps was found another outreach patient. He was a strongly built schizophrenic man, who had, like Ms. Janowski, suffered a great shock thanks to the Joker. Reggie Holloway was in the beginning stages of the Joker grooming him for a new henchman, before the man's conscience halted him after he gave away his schoolhouse security codes.

Joker hadn't been seen since, not by Batman, police, passersby, or any of his associates - including the frantic Harley Quinn, who had escaped Arkham with Poison Ivy not two days after.

However, there had been one fortunate outcome from all this: Mayor Barry Brockbridge was no longer in control of Gotham.

The staff at Arkham had apparently been so shaken and sickened by this event - poor Ms. Janowski hadn't spoken except for her own occasional mad laughter and screams for weeks after - that the entire story had leaked to the press.

With this leak came an uncovering of embezzlement, sexual assault, and drug rings. Alfred saw a grim satisfaction in Mr. Wayne's eyes as they watched the television that night. Brockbridge fumed like a child throwing a tantrum, his unnaturally reddish-brown hairpiece madly askew as he was dragged out of town hall in handcuffs. He kicked away cameramen and photographers snapping shots of him while Commissioner Gordon steered him toward the waiting police car.

The patients were taken back to Thomas Wayne Memorial, and Mayor Hill was back in office.

And Mr. Wayne hadn't had to do a thing.

Perhaps that was why he was obsessing so much now over the Joker and his preoccupation with Jeannie Janowski.

"Any new developments, sir?" Alfred laid the cup of tea on its tray beside the blinking comm unit.

The Dark Knight's gloved fingers were tented beneath his chin. "That's the problem, Alfred. With something this tenuous and vague, I have no idea what's significant and what isn't. Take, for instance, this Jeannie's work history, before her last breakdown: she briefly worked as a file clerk at the Monarch Playing Card Company, which -"

"-which, if I recall correctly, is where our missing clown was trying to gain access to the night of his transformation."

"Exactly. But it's hard to tell if there's any further connection. Apparently Jeannie didn't work there until after those events. There's no evidence there was any contact between her and the Joker beforehand."

"Probably not an accomplice, then?"

"There's nothing I can find."

"Perhaps, sir, it would be beneficial to look into that fateful night at the plant more closely. It seems a little strange to just be a coincidence, even if she worked at the playing card company after the fact."

Batman said nothing, fingers remaining pointed under his chin, staring and staring at the clown's wildly laughing face on the monitors around him.

"There is always the possibility she knew the Joker before his transformation, but doesn't recognize him now. A girlfriend, perhaps?"

Mr. Wayne frowned. It was obvious to Alfred he did not care for this line of thinking.

Did he rebel against the idea of someone seemingly so broken and innocent having once played the gangster's moll? Or was it the idea that Jack Napier, before everything, could have felt something _real_ for someone?

Either way, Bruce said not a word more.

Alfred didn't bother stifling his sigh now. "Very good, sir."

He left Batman to his brooding.

* * *

In truth, Bruce knew Alfred was right. So far there were only dead ends down the other avenues he'd explored.

He was more confident than ever that Jeannie herself held no answers. She'd been so still and empty when he visited her in the schoolroom after. Her hair had covered her face, and her hands were wrapped around her arms as she huddled on the bed.

He tried a few gentle questions, only getting soft whimpers in return. After a few moments of this, two blazing eyes snapped out of those tangled strands of hair and she screamed, "_I don't know!_"

She'd then collapsed into herself, hands covering her face as she sobbed. "Please, please, what does he want from me?"

She didn't say another word for almost a month.

No, whatever Jeannie Janowski's connection to the Joker, she herself was unaware of it. He felt sure of it.

And yet, the Joker was out there still - and therefore a threat to her, and all of Gotham.

Ace Chemicals had been closed for many years now, but still Batman was more familiar with the plant than he'd prefer. Every once in a while, some sort of homing instinct of the Joker's would kick in, and he'd return to the place of his birth. Batman had fought and captured him there more times than he wished to count.

Perhaps it was time for a solo visit.

* * *

Jeannie sat quietly at the center of Thomas Wayne Memorial's board room, in front of the panel full of psychiatrists and consultants. Outwardly, she looked a picture of calm - almost prim in the way she sat straight-backed in the fold-out chair, ankles crossed, hands folded neatly in her lap.

Anyone who looked into her eyes, however, saw that there was a part of her still not quite there. Meanwhile, the part of her that was present revealed a determination few had suspected she was capable of.

Except for Leland. She tried not to let her pride and relief show too much in her face. Now that Brockbridge and van den Berg were gone, and Jeannie had come back slowly to herself, the doctor felt like she was walking on air. She could breathe again.

Yet noting the ashen color in Jeannie's cheeks and the glazed gleam in her eyes, she knew the ramifications of the outreach program would linger for a long time to come.

Thomas Wayne Memorial's Chief Psychiatrist Dr. James Nkomo spoke. "Well, Jeannie. It's good to see you back on your feet again." Nkomo was a good man, and Leland had worked closely with him for years, and much like Leland he had an easy, off-hand manner with the patients.

There was no denying, however, that Jeannie still avoided his eyes, still let her hair fall subtly over her face. She kept her posture straight, her hands still folded determinedly in her lap, but it was clear, still, that interacting with others was painful for her - especially men.

She licked her lips, spoke. Her voice was wintry and clear. "Thank you, Dr. Nkomo. Thank you all for meeting with me. I have a few questions and then a request."

Nkomo nodded, motioning for her to continue. Davitz smiled encouragement.

Her eyes swam around the room as she spoke. "You all know that I don't remember much of the Joker coming to my room that night." A quick swallow. "Only little bits and pieces. Him laughing, grabbing me. I'm not even sure if that part really happened. I know he broke into my room, had his hands on me, and then escaped. But I feel like all of you are keeping something back from me."

Surprised looks all over the room. Ice laced her words.

This wasn't the compliant, shuffling, meek patient they were used to. A cold perseverance had taken over.

"I'd like to know more, please."

Nkomo looked to Leland. They both knew the fine line they tread. If they withheld information, they would be denying her her basic rights, not only as a patient, but as a person. However, if they told her that the Joker had been holding her, caressing her, weeping into her hair with what looked like genuine tenderness, would they create another Harley Quinn, someone moved by the image of the madman's strange show of affection?

Leland studied Jeannie. She was strong to come back to herself so many times, but that strength came hand in hand with a pervasive vulnerability. She'd never had a romantic relationship of any kind. She adored classic comedy and disappeared into a 1930s black-and-white sound stage fantasy anytime the world became too much. That could be a lethal combo when it came to the Joker.

No, Leland decided. No.

"It's just as we said in the report, Jeannie. Inam heard the Joker enter your room, and he managed to get to Arkham. When we arrived at the schoolhouse, the Joker was -"

"Yes?"

" -he had you cornered. He pushed past us when we entered."

Leland wouldn't admit it, but she felt shamed by the tired, cynical way Jeannie stared at her now, so still in her chair.

"I see."

_She doesn't believe me._ Leland felt the rare sensation of guilt prick at the back of her neck.

_That's what the Joker does. Whether we want to admit it or not, he does change us. He makes us compromise ourselves, our morality, in an effort to contain his influence._

Jeannie closed her eyes briefly, her eyelids fluttering light over her eyes. When she opened them, there was a bottomless sadness there. "I guess I can move on to my request, then. I would like to try a place of my own again."

Leland let herself relax. This part they expected, ever since Jeannie slowly emerged from the Blur with a new glint of cold metal in her eyes.

The doctor smiled at her. "We can definitely help you there."

A twitch at the corner of Jeannie's mouth. "Hopefully more helpful than when I was at Arkham."

Leland just stopped herself from wincing. A flame shot through her chest. That one - that one hit home.

"Now, Jeannie" -

Leland put a hand on Nkomo's arm. "No, it's all right. She's right. I should have done more, Jeannie. I apologize."

"Me, too, Jeannie." Davitz, very quiet.

Jeannie cast her eyes down and away from them. It was new to her, expressing her anger. It was healthy, it was well earned, but she still fell back on her old friend doubt- _after all, they mean well._

Fresh shot of anger. _Mean well, mean well, yes, everyone always means oh so well -_

_Stop it._

She said nothing.

Leland opened a folder in front of her. "Now, about getting you a place of your own. I've come up with a few options for you to look over."

* * *

The hugeness, the quiet about the abandoned Ace Chemical plant had a hostile air about it, like a cliff-hanger at the end of a horror film: the air of unfinished business.

The dark looming giant of a facility always gave the Dark Knight, strong and stalwart, a fresh case of the creeps.

He sent his grappling hook flying to the rooftop.

He knew that the Joker wasn't there because he had checked months ago. He'd checked every nook and cranny that he knew the Joker liked to sequester himself away in.

So far, no sign. The longer the absence, the more dangerous it became.

Batman slipped through a large hole in one of the skylights. He landed with a rattling clang on the rampart below.

_Perhaps this was the exact spot I stood in the night I met Jack Napier._

He shoved the thought back. He always did. Had to.

He made his way toward the administrative offices, toward the facility where the locked up files dwelt.

He passed the vats, undulating with that bright, toxic green.

"_I wish we knew how to get rid of it,_" Gordon once confided in him after they apprehended Joker there one of many times. They had both stood staring down, staring into that God-Knows-What mix of chemical poison.

"_But none of the scientists can predict what will happen if we handle it. The most we can do is staunch it, keep it from reaching the river again."_

Batman had never thoroughly investigated the formula that made up the acid in those vats - the acid that had turned Jack Napier into a permanent clown, breaking his mind forever.

Dr. Markov, Ace's president, had told Batman that the scientist responsible for the brew had been dismissed, his credentials proven forgeries. It was impossible to piece together the constituents making up the chemicals, as the man had accidentally created them when trying to stabilize the acid.

_Impossible to replicate._

Batman tried turning on the light to the storage room but nothing doing. There was no electricity in the place.

Turning on his flashlight, Batman knelt down, opened mildew-stained boxes and began his work.

Before, he'd been looking for connections to the playing card company next door, or to the mob.

Now, however, he made a broader search. The issue of the Joker and Jeannie Janowski was too diffuse to focus on any particular thing.

Three hours passed without him realizing when he came across an old lockbox in the corner, obscured by cobwebs and dust. The mechanism was rusted, which made Batman's work picking the lock a little more difficult.

Inside were confidential papers about the so-called "accidental brew".

He remembered reading these before, not long after Jack Napier's accident.

Only this copy was very clear about one thing left out in his original read.

Fifteen pages were missing. Redacted.

Frustrated, Batman flipped through the entire report, and spied that several words were marked out - given the context of the sentences, a name.

Batman stared at the blacked out lines.

_I have chemicals of my own at the Batcave that can take care of these._

He sealed the papers and tucked them away in his cape.

* * *

As the Batman glided away from the window, landing below in the Batmobile, he was tracked by two circular frames that followed him as he drove away out of sight.

Only then did Harley Quinn lower her binoculars.

"Are we done yet, Harl?" Ivy's voice was thick with boredom. She reclined in the passenger seat. They were parked in the alley across from the plant. The clown girl had staked out the place for a month now, after exhausting all other hiding places her Puddin' liked to ensconce himself away in.

She knew this was his favorite. She knew it was only a matter of time before he returned to it.

Ivy was sick of spending her nights here. She was sick of how tense and unhappy Harley was.

She was sick of playing the sidekick. She never cared for the role, never expected to fill it.

Harley only replied with a question of her own. "Where do you think he's going?"

"Probably going to take a bat nap. It's almost 2:00 in the morning, Harley."

Harley slid into the driver's seat, her painted white face grim and determined. "Did you see how long ol' Bats was in there, Red? He found something. I'm sure of it."

"Chemical burns?"

"No, silly. Something to do with Mr. J." Suddenly determined, she turned on the ignition.

"Are we finally going back to the hotel?" Ivy tried to hide the anticipation in her voice. Harley had been so high-strung lately...it would be fun to make her relax…

But Harley had something else in mind.

* * *

Jeannie knew somewhere in the back of her mind, she should be listening to her new landlady. Mrs. Louise Borowitz led her upstairs, giving her a brusque tour of this somewhat cozy boarding house in this somewhat lousy neighborhood.

But Jeannie couldn't really focus. It was getting rather late in the evening, and she could feel her grip on things slip a little.

Yet like an automaton programmed for peak friendliness, she nodded and smiled at everything the old lady told her. Mrs. Borowitz unlocked a door on the second floor. "Now, it's nothing too fancy, mind. But I don't suppose you were expecting that."

"No."

Mrs. Borowitz turned on the light. Jeannie took in her new home.

Actually, the apartment was pleasant enough, though small. There was a homey, ladylike decor in the frilly lamp covers and the large quilt over the bed. A lace curtain separated the living space from the bed space. It even had its own half-bathroom.

The apartment had a frankly old lady aesthetic, and Jeannie found she didn't mind it. She kind of liked its forced hokiness. She couldn't say why.

A quick moment of disorientation where she was in the warm living room with Patty while Molly and Janusz danced, and then she was back and smiled her thanks to Mrs. Borowitz.

Mrs. Borowitz said something about turning the faucet a certain way for hot water, then reminded her that the rent was due at the end of the month. She bid Jeannie a disinterested good night and left.

Jeannie wasn't sure how much her new landlady knew about her history. For some reason, she hadn't wanted to ask Leland or Davitz. She regretted that now. She wasn't sure which she'd prefer: everyone knowing about her, and adjusting their expectations accordingly, or everyone assuming she was a normal lady, giving her a chance to start anew.

Jeannie shivered. She was leaning right now toward the former. Who knows how long she'd be able to keep up the facade...better everyone be aware, now, so there'd be no surprise and confusion later.

_Stop. Being. So. NEGATIVE._

_You will survive. You always survive._

Yes, Jeannie was stronger than they realized, than she herself realized most of the time. But it was a cold comfort, really, when inevitably something would happen and the strength faded and she was left with nothing but howling fear.

Without giving herself a chance to think any more, she opened her suitcase and began unpacking.

Her hands shook only a little. They'd shaken far more at the interview at Shore Business Solutions earlier that day.

Leland and the others had decided it would be tempting fate - the Joker - to place her directly in Gotham City. So here she was at the Jersey Shore, of all places. Apparently there was some kind of reality television show glamorizing the place, but all Jeannie saw so far were gray skies and a dark, inky ocean in the distance, not too conducive to the party life.

Maybe there was some romance here, but of that dark, Gothic kind, far more threatening than sexy.

But maybe that was just the way Jeannie viewed everything now. If they'd found her work on a beach in Honolulu she was sure she'd have found a way to view it as grim and uninviting.

Of course, the interview itself was just a formality. Her new employers, at least, had a rough idea of her background. It had all been set up by social workers from Thomas Wayne.

More custodial work. That suit her just fine.

Ambition had never meant anything to Jeannie, even before her life spiraled out of control. All she really wanted was a snug den to call her own. Some rabbit burrow to hide herself away in that could still fit her vintage posters and Dad's record player- no, not Dad's record player anymore. That had been destroyed by the Joker.

Not much room for anyone else in that rabbit burrow, when all was said and done.

A drowsy melancholy started lowering her lids after she finished putting her socks away.

_No room for anyone. Not for you, Jay-bird._

She only vaguely recalled the Joker on a conscious level. She assumed more memory of their interactions would return over the years, as soon as her mind was ready to absorb it all. Like with Neil.

All she saw now in her mind's eye were flashes of white skin, green hair, long red lips that weren't always smiling, no, not always. Most haunting was the strangled cry rising from that high laughter.

It reminded her of things, of places, of feelings she'd never really known before. So how could she be reminded...?

She closed her eyes, willing away the tears.

She needed a lifeboat right now. The sea was getting too rocky.

She smiled.

No, there she was, not on a lifeboat, but on an ocean liner. She was running all about the deck, a cheeky stowaway pretending to be the captain, the barber, and now she was somehow mixed up with the mob, and she was as glamorous as Thelma Todd in her slinky sequined designer gown.

_If the nightingales could sing like you…._

She giggled softly. It was strange, she could almost hear the tune, like someone was whistling in the distance, outside her window -

When she glanced that way, she stopped short and gasped sharply.

The ocean liner disappeared and for a moment there were Eastern Hemlocks all around her.

No. No. It was just a trick of the light.

No one was standing there.

Something urged her toward the window, though, and she softly parted the frilly, lacy curtain and looked out.

She stood staring at the empty spot between the lamp post across the street and the trees, where she could have sworn her phantom whistler had stood. Staring back at her.

_...They'd sing much sweeter than they do…._

After five minutes, she laughed at herself. She sat down at her vanity, a real vanity this time, and started a letter to Janusz.

* * *

As he watched her silhouette fade from view, he whisper-sang to the tree he leaned against.

"_For you brought a new kind of love to me."_

A red smile and snicker from behind the black branches, scaring away a squirrel.

Hawk eyes lingered on the lamplight from her window.

He lifted his hat in somber tribute, his laugh disappearing into the breeze.


	8. Chapter 8

A month passed, and Jeannie could feel on her horizon a welcoming and steadying sensation: she was developing a rhythm to her days. She worked afternoons to evenings, and Davitz had successfully bartered her a set schedule. She slept in late, grabbed a bagel downstairs in Mrs. Borowitz's kitchen, then dressed. Her work was simple enough, far simpler than at Arkham, where on top of hawk eyes and eerie laughs that she could scarcely recall now, she'd had to contend with countless floors and cells and regulations.

Shore Business Solutions was a small, locally owned company, and most of the employees were either gone for the day or getting ready to leave by the time she arrived.

She hardly had to talk to anyone. It was heaven.

It was only part-time work, but that was all right for now. Jeannie never spent much, never got into the habit of it. Still, it was nice to have a little spending money. She was proud of herself: she'd bought a light blue sweater and some bedroom slippers from a nearby department store.

She considered them birthday presents to herself. Her thirty-fourth birthday had passed without any fuss. She'd received a card from the staff at Thomas Wayne, and Dr. Leland's note almost made her cry.

But she was toughening up. Slowly but surely.

After work, she enjoyed a shower or even a bath in the little half-bathroom she could call her own. When she was done, she could massage her hair dry with a towel next to her new record player (donated by the Wayne Foundation, a lovely gesture after everything), and lose herself in Fred Allen or Jack Benny or The Four Tops.

She was currently Mrs. Borowitz's only boarder. The last one had died of old age, and luckily Jeannie didn't have to stay in that room just down the hall - Mrs. Borowitz, with greater zest than Jeannie had yet seen from her, had told her all about how the old person smell mixed with death still lingered in the close air inside.

No, Jeannie had quickly become fond of _her_ little room, that she paid with using _her_ own wages. She certainly didn't have that luxury at Arkham.

It was noon on a Saturday. She worked every other weekend, and this was hers off.

She'd been awake for the past two hours, but still she lay in bed, lolling lazily about as the faint gray sunlight peeked through her window. She bit her lip and traced the ridges in the wall with one finger.

She supposed this was contentment. Happiness was too big and cumbersome a word, and she knew not to try for it.

But contentment wasn't too much to ask for, was it?

All at once her shoulders hunched upward like a cornered cat's.

Someone was knocking on her door.

It wasn't Mrs. Borowitz. Jeannie knew the soft, reluctant taps of her landlady, come to bring up supper on rare occasions. No, this knock was forthright, vital, and although she was sure someone like Poison Ivy might label this as anachronistic sexist thinking, distinctly masculine.

She didn't have spit enough to swallow.

She wrapped her bathrobe tightly around herself, almost tripped herself getting into her brand new slippers.

_One-two-three-four-five, breathe, one-two-three-four-if-the-nightingales -_

With shaking hands, she pulled the chain off her door, took a deep breath, and opened it.

Staring down at her was the friendliest face she'd ever seen.

"Hiya! I'm your new neighbor, Ben Kublesky. You haven't heard about me yet, Mrs. Borowitz said she didn't have the time to tell you. I only just found the room last week, and I guess you've been working when I've been by. I've been busy during the day finishing up old business out of town." He held out a long hand with sensitive, tapered fingers.

She blinked rapidly, sweeping her hair out of her face. She was suddenly painfully aware of the picture she made: a sleep-addled mouse, still in her bed things, hair and teeth unbrushed.

Still, she braved an answering smile and placed her small limp hand in his. "Hi," breathed out in a confiding half-whisper. "Jeannie Janowski."  
He had dark, dancing eyes brimming with life. She didn't know if he was conventionally handsome - he had a lantern jaw and a long, prominent nose - but -

She found him attractive. Strikingly so.

He took in the state she was in without judgement, but he did look abashed as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Boy, I didn't mean to get you up. Sorry about that."

For some reason Jeannie found that very funny. She threw her head back and laughed. "Don't you apologize! This is just how it is." She shrugged, and he almost lost his balance at the sight of her smile - it wasn't because it was such a big smile, which it was, but because her entire face seemed to transform - something from inside -

"Anyway," she continued, "What can I do for you, Mr. Kublesky?" _Ben Kublesky. Do I know that name? I feel like I know that name._

Then again, there was something sort of familiar about him in general. There was something about this stranger with the laughing eyes and blade-quick smile that made her feel safer with him than with all the staff at Thomas Wayne that she knew and trusted.

_What a strange, dangerous thing to think, after only thirty or so seconds of meeting him._

"Actually, I was hoping for a favor. It's a big one, you ready for it?" He took in a mock breath and said, "I need you to hold my door open for me."

She raised an eyebrow, laughed again. The sound made the quiet boarding house come alive.

It was an infectious tune, so he joined her. "I just gotta push in a dolly full of odd and ends and it would go a lot more smoothly with an extra hand. Mrs. Borowitz is out right now, so" -

"Oh, sure!" Jeannie should have been shocked at herself. Her Stranger Danger internal alarms were always ready to blare, but for some reason -  
For some reason they weren't blaring at all.

"Gimme a moment," she shut the door. He stood stock-still, listening to her slight shuffling sounds from within. He watched the shifting light from under her door, heard the faucet run, and the hurried rush of bristles against teeth.

A moment later and there she was, bright springtime smile still on her face, but clothed and groomed. She was wearing a light blue sweater. "Shall we?"  
It was only as they walked down the silent hallway, with the hotel-style portraits of old people feeding ducks in the park or bowls of fruit staring down at them as they passed, that Jeannie felt her normal reticent skittishness return. Her hands moved restlessly at her sides.

He gave no indication he noticed. His hands were tucked casually into his pockets, and he whistled beautifully - whistled -

_Whistled._

A brief whirlpool in front of her eyes that sucked her in for less than a second, then she came back and asked brightly, "Hey, that's - oh, what is it called - the tune from the old Alfred Hitchcock show -"

His face lit up, pleasantly surprised she recognized it. "'Funeral March of a Marionette!'"

She clapped once, beaming. "Yes! Oh, it's been years since I've heard it. Since I've thought of it."

"I used to watch the old reruns all the time when I was a kid. Gave me the heebie-jeebies. I was always more for _Looney Tunes_ during the day, or _Rocky & Bullwinkle."_

Jeannie grinned. "Me, too."

There was a surge of warmth between them, thawing the cold stale air of this unused part of Mrs. Borowitz's house.

She felt relaxed enough to ask, "What, what brings you here? To this neighborhood?"

"I got work as a longshoreman down at the docks."

Just like her father.

_And I can believe it, too._ She swept quick eyes over him. He had a lean body, lithe, with hands that looked more artistic than her image of a longshoreman's, but he was also broad-shouldered with muscles bulging beneath his old fashioned sweater vest. He was tall; maybe over six feet? Of course, most people looked tall to Jeannie.

_He's like the love child of Dick Van Dyke and Gene Kelly._

She shook her hair over her face, sure she was red as sin.

She wasn't used to _those_ kind of thoughts, outside of watching old movies with, well, Dick Van Dyke and Gene Kelly.

He held his door open for her, made a show of spreading his hand out. "_Entres-vous!_"

_Entres-vous._

A shy duck of the head, then she entered.

"Oh, good thinking keeping the windows open! Did Mrs. Borowitz tell you all about" -

"That poor dead old dame, my predecessor? Oh, yes. In vivid detail. Luckily the smell isn't as bad as she let on."

He watched as she suddenly noticed his new decor, and stared starry-eyed all around her.

She herself whistled now, in awe. "Wow! Just...my goodness. Are those…_original_ Chuck Jones stills?"

"Yup! Cost me a pretty penny, too."

Elmer Fudd's shotgun was inside Bugs Bunny's mouth, and the rabbit's ears and tail and legs were up in all directions, eyes wild with cartoonish fear.

The smile she turned to Ben Kublesky with pierced something vital in his heart.

He watched her as she, almost in a sort of daze, wandered to each collectible. "Oh! I had this same Groucho phone when I was a teenager!" She clapped again and bent over, machine gun patter filling the room as she took in the familiar mustache handle.

She didn't notice, amidst all the framed Buster Keaton pictures, Al Hirschfeld originals, pin-up Jessica Rabbits, that there were no family photographs to be seen.  
After all, why should she notice? She didn't have any of hers on display.

All the while, Ben Kublesky stood cross-armed in the doorway, watching her inspect his room as if it were a fine art exhibit.

At last she shook the stars out of her eyes and her smile turned more rueful. "Oh boy, talk about rude. I'm so sorry! Here, I'll get that door for you now."

With mincing steps she hurried over and reached for the knob.

Her hand brushed his, like in the movies.

Their eyes met, like in the movies.

His were so fiery and familiar.

He counted the three faint freckles on her nose.

Once he was done wheeling in the dolly with his record collection, he asked her to stay for a late lunch or early dinner, however she wanted to think of it.

* * *

Jeannie couldn't believe how easy it all was. On those hazy days lying in bed at Thomas Wayne, half in the grips of the Blur, half out, when she'd imagine a nice dinner with a nice young man, her anxiety would puncture each nice thought - _a girl off her rocker can never have that, you'll start screaming, you'll panic, you'll laugh too much, you'll cry too much, you'll you'll_

But now here she was, cracking up as he imitated the Swedish Chef at the stove. The little kitchenette was an amenity that Ben joked was worth the price of living in a dead woman's room.  
Jeannie hiccuped and snorted from where she hovered near the little table he'd set up. He flopped his arms around in a picture-perfect imitation of a muppet. "Bor-bee-bor, dash of the salt, ja."

All she knew how to cook was stove popped popcorn and microwave dinners; thankfully he shooed her away when she offered to help.

"Hey, it's my treat! You helped me out today."

She shifted awkwardly from one foot to another, wearing out her new sweater sleeves by pulling them over her hands. "I held a door open. Not the most labor-intensive favor you could have asked." A coltish whinny-laugh.

He only waved a hand at her, whistled again, and fried up some shrimp with stir fry.

She couldn't sit still. He'd let her select the soundtrack, and after delicately flicking through his impressive record collection, she selected _Flamingo Serenade_. She stood now by the record player, swaying a little to "I Only Have Eyes For You".

His pleasant whistle (_whistle_), the sizzling on the stove, made her forget her qualms this was too romantic a selection.

As she swayed, he talked. "Really, when you think about it, this is a helluva nice neighborhood considering how low the rent is. I've lived in much worse." She closed her eyes. He would have made a great radio program announcer. He had a rich, expressive, old-fashioned voice.

She liked it. A lot.

He placed the plates on the table. "Dinner is served!" His smile was like a sword glistening before battle.

Instead of sitting at the edge of the seat like she would ordinarily, she found herself leaning back, even accepting the glass of wine he poured.

God, his grin was so easy, the food smelled so good, _he_ smelled so good….

She wasn't what was nowadays called a "foodie". She ate to live. Something about the idea of enjoying a lavish meal made her strangely queasy. Dr. McTavish helped her realize it had been quite the final meal Neil Dugan had prepared for the Janowski family: roast beef, buns with home-churned butter, fresh asparagus, that warm apple cider. Any food too opulently prepared would naturally trigger that scene just before the drugs took her under, awaking her to her mother murdered.

Once again, she had her stepfather to thank for missing out on one of life's perks - fine dining.

Now, though - now she didn't mind. She always did love shrimp. Molly would make her shrimp scampi on her birthdays, because it was her favorite.

And the stir-fry was delicious.

"Now, you've heard me yak on all about myself," he started. _Hardly_, she thought. "Now let's hear about you! Tell me: what brings a fellow Chuck Jones-slash-Alfred Hitchcock-slash-Flamingos fan to this neck of the woods?"

Jeannie took a sip of the wine, the strong sweet taste almost flooring her. She knew that if they were to become - _friends_, that eventually everything would have to come out. He would notice odd behavior, her fidgetiness. If they went out into the city, he couldn't help but see the way her eyes would dart all over, the way she'd chug out her breath, nostrils flaring as panic descended -

Yes, she would eventually fuck this all up, so might as well be upfront right here, right now.

She looked into his eyes and told him - "I moved here from Gotham, for work. I'm a custodian." She shrugged sharply, grin crooked and uncertain now.

_Soon I will tell him. Soon._

She couldn't read his eyes as they studied her.

She couldn't know the foreign beat of tenderness clenching his chest as he stared at her brave, awkward grimace-grin.

"Well, I'm sure glad we met, Jeannie. It's hard meeting people, isn't it?"

Her eyes like two arrows flew through him, her face wintry and far away.

"Yes," she whispered.

On impulse he reached over and squeezed her hand.

She closed her eyes, shuddering almost at its warmth, so strange and new to her.

When she opened her eyes again, their expression was as ancient and unchanging as the sun. "Thank you, Ben."

"Please," the short squeeze he gave her hand now was intense almost to the point of pain. There was a wild sort of urgency there in his eyes she couldn't place but somehow made her protective. "Please, call me Jack."

She tilted her head questioningly.

He seemed to recover, laughing again. "My middle name. That's what all my friends and family call me."

He wondered which way that look of hers was going to go.

At last she lifted her glass, ancient, friendly smile wide and real. "All right. Jack."

They clinked glasses.

Benjamin Jack Kublesky felt a stronger rush of triumph, of ecstasy in his heart, than he ever had before.

* * *

After dinner she handed him the screwdriver and parts to help him connect his projection screen: a little home theater.

"Which one shall it be?" He winked at her.

An excitement she hadn't felt since movie night with her grandparents and siblings filled her. She was being asked to stay and watch an old movie with an attractive man who made her laugh.

She briefly wondered if she'd detached from reality again and would wake up held down by restraints in Thomas Wayne.

For once, Jeannie didn't care. She gave the thought a mental shrug and flicked determinedly through his titles.

He never once took his eyes off her profile, taking in her parted lips, her brow furrowed as she browsed his reels.

As they watched Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant chase a leopard named Baby in Connecticut, Jeannie should have felt surprised when her hand found his, when her head found the crook between his head and shoulder.

Yet everything was so - _easy_.

It was as if they'd done this so, so many times, and were simply meeting again after a brief separation; a work trip, perhaps, or come back from visiting family out of town.

She could have cried. His arm was so sturdy and warm. Without thinking, she buried her face deeply into that crook between neck and shoulder, nuzzled it.

She couldn't see that there were tears in his eyes, that his free hand gripped the arm of the couch for dear life.

She was in a whole other kind of Blur now. This one was good, it was welcoming. It made her act like who she could have been if everything hadn't happened, and she met a nice man with a rich voice and a perfect sense of humor and taste in movies.

Like what was happening here, right now.

When Katharine and Cary embraced on the rafters as the dinosaur's skeleton collapsed, Jack and Jeannie looked at each other at the same time.

Later, at the door. When she spoke, she was solemn, grave. "Thank you for the most wonderful evening." There was a little line between her eyes as she looked at him: frank, true."Goodnight," a quick kiss on his cheek and she darted down the hall.

* * *

Perhaps she should have known.

Of course, consciously she had shoved recent events out of her memory, so maybe that was it.

But maybe a part of her did know, but because Jack Kubesky's smile, laugh, and goofy sense of humor were just right, just like hers, she ignored that part.

Either way, Jeannie went to sleep that night crying and laughing and happy and without considering the truth.

Yes, she was in the Blur, but oh, she liked this Blur. She did. She did.

_It was happening, it was finally happening._

For once, tragically, she let herself believe without doubt.

* * *

He stared after her as she hurried down the hall, head bowed to mask her happiness.

He closed the door. He looked at his new apartment.

He laughed. Once.

Laughed again.

It wasn't the laugh of today, with her. No, it was that other laugh.

It made the air in the room turn electric, hum with the tension that always followed this laugh.

He saw red before his eyes. The room began to spin like a roulette table; like a merry-go-round.

_The merry-go-round broke down._

Fists clenching, unclenching.

He felt like breaking every single plate in the house.

Instead he sat at his kitchen table and sobbed and laughed into his hands, and all who heard the mad shrieks was the squirrel from the other night, perched puzzled for a moment on the branch outside the window before hurrying back to his store of acorns.


	9. Chapter 9

Mrs. Borowitz was reflective and nervous in her kitchen the next morning. These were emotions she wasn't used to and so she decided she disliked them, intensely. She sat absentmindedly sipping her coffee, staring off into space. Her eyes flicked like a scared doe's when Jeannie shuffled in.

The girl was smiling. "Good morning."

Mrs. Borowitz had yet to see Jeannie out and about this early.

The landlady watched her boarder as she poured herself a cup and leaned against the fridge, head down. She tapped her coffee mug with her fingernails, clearly thinking over whatever it is she wanted to say.

At last she spoke, in a voice a little too casual. "That's a nice new boarder we have. Mr. Kublesky."

Her hair hid her face.

Mrs. Borowitz's expression didn't change. "So you met him, huh?"

"Yeah." She cleared her throat. "I helped him move some things in yesterday."

At last her eyes met Mrs. Borowitz's. "So is he really as nice as he seems?" She jerked her shoulders up in a shrug, laughed a little. "It's like he came out of nowhere."

Mrs. Borowitz blinked, then spoke. "He sure is a nice guy. Came highly recommended by his contractors, who've recommended me boarders before." She smoothed a wrinkle on the table cloth. "Real nice guy."

She saw a flush on Jeannie's face. The young woman's eyes were faraway as she gazed at her coffee. She smiled down at the swirls of cream and cinnamon.

"Hm. Well, that's good to know. Anyway, I better go get dressed. Thank you, Mrs. Borowitz."

She sped away, head still down, but with a conspiratorial smile that held no trace of malice.

It was only when Jeannie's door closed upstairs that the old lady buried her face in her hands, massaging her temples.

* * *

No word from him the entire day.

Jeannie spent Sunday pacing her room, anxiety filling her.

Never once did she hear him whistle, or move anything around, or play a movie.

She had to talk herself down. He had said, hadn't he, something about working? Or had she simply shown her cards too soon, been too blatant with her affections as they watched the movie? Had she scared him off?

It never once occurred to her that she could be the one to reach out, to go over for a quick hello.

She woke up the next day in the throws of depression, sure he had just been nice to his new neighbor and she, wildly inexperienced as she was, had read far, far too much into it.

Then there came that confident, enthusiastic knock on her door.

She laughed at the man in front of her. "Well, Boo-Boo? I stole a pic-a-nic basket, and was looking for a partner in crime." Big, bullshit-eating grin as he held up a fully packed basket.

Without a word, she grabbed her sweater and joined him in the hall.

There was a sunny warmth to her face he hadn't seen in -

"I hear there's a nice park nearby. Kids are in school right now, so I think we should be safe." Confiding wink.

She tucked her hand into his.

There was that strange surge through Jack's body again. It frightened him.

* * *

It was a small park, but well kept with a pond in the middle. They sat beneath some dogwoods and ate scones in silence for a few minutes, simply soaking in the quiet and peace of the place.

He spoke after throwing some ducks a few crumbs. "Hey. What are you up to tonight? After you get off work, I mean?" _Work work, I don't want her to work, I want her to sit out here with me forever -_

"I work till 7:30. That's also when I start tomorrow, so" -

"So you don't mind a late night?" She was disarmed in a good way by the eager, boyish way he inched forward, eyes bright and penetrating.

She shook her head, smiling. "No."

"What do you say to _Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein_ at my place after you get off?"

She straightened, fully interested. "Is it" -

"Yup! The restored edition! Finally."

"Yes!" She cheered. "God, it's been _forever_ since I've seen that movie, oh, it was always my favorite…" Some shade passed over her features, her steady smile suddenly a very fragile, crooked thing.

_Oh god,_ she begged silently to herself, _Please don't cry over watching a freaking Abbott and Costello movie, please don't…_

Before he could express any concern, she took in a great deep breath and with some real concentrated magic, she was the same as before. "Yes, Jack, I'd love to."

They clinked paper cups.

Still, she cast her eyes down quickly, and he saw her fighting with that shade again.

A shot of rage he could scarcely contain.

_Not his sunny Jeannie. No more trauma, none of that now._

_No, never again._

This time, there would be no failure.

Yet as the picnic continued, she remained halfway in that dim twilight region, unable to be fully present, fully happy.

Jack's hand twitched in the grass.

* * *

They took a walk through town afterward, and Jeannie took several deep breaths as the crowds grew around them. Luckily it was a weekday, so the crush of people wasn't as thick as it could have been.

Still, Jack could sense Jeannie's unease.

So he did what he always did.

He made her laugh.

First, a stop at the ice cream parlor. He teased her about her single scoop of strawberry. She laughed as he heaped topping after topping onto his toppling sundae.

Next a trip to a costume shop. He tried on various hats and mustaches, and encouraged her to do the same.

She was wary at first, but once he put on the Admiral's hat and straightened, slipping his hand into his shirt, a perfect picture of a naval officer's stiff portrait, she thawed completely and he drowned in her HA-HA-HA-HA.

"You look like Sam the Eagle," she snorted.

Adopting the muppet's voice, he told her, "It is hard to soar with eagles when you work with turkeys."

She doubled over, her Bride of Frankenstein wig falling to the ground. Jack watched as she clapped and wiped away tears - happy tears, they must always be happy tears.

Her hand was warm in his on the way back to the house, and they strolled slowly down the sidewalk.

She still had a couple hours before her shift started.

_Her shift. Damn her stupid fucking shift._ He bit back his growl.

_She's mine._

She coughed, then stammered, "I, I'm sorry if...if I seemed sort of...well, out of sorts for a while there."

He spoke quickly. "Don't worry about it."

"No, it's just...it's just I'm not used to…" she looked up, searching for the right word. She gave up. "I don't get out much." Sharp shrug.

He began running the vaudeville hook he'd bought at the costume shop down the streetlights. "It's basically overrated."

"Not with the right person."

There was no punchline there, no brusque comment to cover the sincerity.

Her soft, frank gaze unnerved him. He squeezed her hand, careful not to make it hurt. His heart was hammering painfully in his chest, too fast, too fast.

His thoughts were speeding by like an out of control vehicle. _It could be this way. Why couldn't it be this way? We'll start all over, though I'm not sure exactly what there is to start over. But we'll do it. We'll get married, have kids, we'll make each other laugh, and it will be peachy keen. And if I get _certain urges_, well, quick business trip to Gotham and I'll just be sure Batsy doesn't catch_ -

A coolness now as he realized -

_No. Bats will know where to look. He'll find us in our safe little corner of the world. No, if I do this -_

He stole a quick look at her, who seemed like she was thinking along the same lines - her smile was bright and dreamy, and her lips were moving as if she were quietly reciting a nice comforting song to herself.

_Daydreaming about the future._

If he did this, he'd have to do it all the way.

No more Gotham.

No more Joker.

No more Batman.

The hand that wasn't holding hers curled into a fist.

* * *

They saw each other every day.

At the end of the sixth week, Jeannie didn't say a word as he walked her to her door. Without looking at him, she opened the door wider than the usual crack, and slipped inside. Then, she opened it wider still.

Only then did she dare look at him over her shoulder.

He followed her into her apartment. The space was smaller than his.

He followed her into the bedroom. She sat cross-legged on her bed. He was reminded of that shot of Kim Novak in _Vertigo_, when the woman Jimmy Stewart thought only looked like the woman he loved sat with her profile facing him, silhouetted by the green neon lights outside.

"_Why? Because I remind you of her?"_

It was only when he reached the bed that he noticed instead of the practiced cool of a movie star, Jeannie was trembling, trembling uncontrollably.

Her eyes were wide and unseeing, her lips moving rapidly.

He felt - fear.

"Jeannie? Hey, Jeannie girl?" He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

She blinked hard, once. When she opened her eyes, she seemed swallowed up by a misery so old.

"I've never done this before." Yet her voice was jaded, tired. "I've never been truly on my own since I was fourteen and I watched my stepfather slaughter my brother and sister with an ax."

She said this so plainly, in almost the same frank, soft tone as before, that -

That Jack did what he always did.

_What he always did._

He laughed.

A sharp glance from Jeannie, full of thunder.

Then she burst out laughing, too.

She doubled over as if in pain, laughing and crying.

He didn't have to think, some instinct took over. He pulled her into his chest, cradled her as she shook.

He just held her that night.

He woke up with her hair in his face, with her back pressed against his stomach.

He wept in that hair as she slept, pulled her to him and felt like he was dying.

By the time she woke up, he was whistling over French toast on the griddle.

When they finished eating, he listened as Jeannie told him everything. Very matter-of-factly, no frills or flourishes. Jeannie's way.

He felt like he was listening to an ages old pagan folk tale, told by a woodland witch, as she described her race through the forest. Snow White escaping a rabid huntsman.

She collapsed against him when she finished, sighing as if deflated.

Jack said nothing.

After a time, he walked over to the DVD collection he'd helped her stock.

He pulled out _The Shop Around The Corner_.

He loved watching movies with her. She absorbed everything as if she were suddenly plucked down into celluloid Wonderland, right there in smooth black and white.

Her eyes were old and dreamy as James Stewart told Margaret Sullavan who her mystery correspondent really was.

Jack couldn't help it. He pulled her face away from the screen and kissed her.

She threw herself into his embrace, kissing him back with a roughness, with a sureness that hadn't been there before.

Very slowly his hand slipped under her skirt, not daring to, not quite, but -

She grabbed his hand and pulled it in further.

They made love on the couch.

Afterward, they laughed, hugging each other tightly. They were home.

* * *

As she slept, he stared at the ceiling.

A black clarity filled his mind that matched the dark room.

Without a word, without a sound, he sat up. He walked out of her room, shutting the door noiselessly behind him.

He entered his. He took out of his cooler what he'd kept there, since moving in.

A bottle with an expensive champagne label. He'd brought it all the way from Gotham.

Yes. It was time.

Very faintly he thought he heard carnival music as he walked back to her quiet dim room.

* * *

Rick Sanchez shuffled through his kitchenette and opened the fridge. He took the lid off a carton of milk and took two hearty gulps. He burped and scratched his chest through his stained wife-beater. He gave no reaction as his drone alarms suddenly blared and blasted their red strobe lights. They surrounded him, his buzzing little protectors.

A flick of an eyelid as he made out the dark bat-shaped shadow in the living room. "Christ, took you long enough. After going on eleven years, I was kinda hoping you'd never show up."  
He did finally flinch when the batarang took out all five drones.

"Damn. Those are the closest things I have to kids, y'know? Brutal, man."

The shadow didn't move.

Rick shrugged. "All right." He grabbed a can of beer and flopped down in his La-Z Boy, flipped up the legs. He snapped open the can, took a long sip. "Let's get this over with. This about Napier?"  
He sensed the shadow tensing. _Didn't expect that right off the bat, did you, Batshit Man?_ "Yeah, I figured."

The shadow finally moved, stepping forward. Rick rolled his eyes at the deliberate rasp in the man's low voice. "You were fired from Ace Chemicals."

"Ahead of you there, chief. You found out about the redacted papers, right? Probably used some of your own bat chemicals to find my name under all that sharpie. But if you want me to fill you in on the rest, give you the-the-the full en-enchilada, I'll need a little grease for my palm, y'know. A-a-a-burraaaappp - a little something to get-get me a new pair of spats, y'know?" He made a little rubbing motion with his fingers.

"Shit!" Batman kicked in the La-Z Boy's legs, sending Rick flying across the floor, beer spraying everywhere. "Jeez, bro. I'm-I'm almost eighty, you know? Beating up a senior citizen here. Elder abuse. Christ, I'm so delicate."

This didn't seem to affect Batman any, as he hoisted the old man up by his wife beater. "This will go a lot easier for you if you cooperate now."

"Pfft." Spittle over the Dark Knight's mask. "Think I'm scared of you? I know all about you, you giant caped pussy. _Ooooooh, I don't kill anyone, I don't practice trigger-happy police level brutality on civilians, oooooh, gotta, gotta uphold some useless made up moral code that society shits on anyway!_" He snorted. "You're not going to do anything to me, tough guy, let's be real."

"_No, but I will!"_

Rick yelped as a hard ball with jester ears hit him in the head. "What the -"

Batman's harsh voice poured out of his throat like gravel into a pit. "_Harley._ What are you doing here?"

There stood the jester in all her red, white, and black glory, gun pointed at the two. Poison Ivy was green and lithe from where she slunk bored by the doorway.

"Reinforcement, Bats! Been trailin' ya for the last couple months. Sure, you always lose us by the time you go back to wherever your little batcave is, but before that, the Batmobile is pretty easy to spot, especially in the dead of night when everybody else is sane enough to be in bed."

Ivy raised her hand. "Wanna go on record, here: I do not approve."

Harley ignored her. She twirled like a trained dancer on her right leg, kicking Sanchez back into his La-Z Boy with her left. "Whee!"

"Jesus," Rick coughed. "All right, all right. I get the picture. Psycho bitch. _OW!_" A vine suddenly shot out and slapped him hard across the face.

Ivy's eyes blazed, hand stretched outward as she commanded the vine that sprang from somewhere beside her. "No way to speak to a lady there."

Rick rubbed his smarting cheek. He glanced at Batman. "You just gonna let this happen, chief?"

Batman stood still and silent for several moments, speculating. At last he addressed Rick. "Will it get you talking?"

"Uh, sure, don't wanna get strangled to death by vines or choke on Joker Toxin or whatever. But, uh, aren't you worried about these two psycho" - quick glance at Ivy - "_chicks_ getting wise to the situation?"

"Don't worry about that," Batman assured him. "I will make sure they tow the line." The eye slits narrowed as he stared at the two women.

"Now," Harley said comfortably, sitting on the arm of his chair, legs crossed. "What were you sayin' about my Puddin'?"

"Can I at least get another beer?" He hissed in pain as Harley pulled his head back by his hair, the wispy strands clenched in her tight grip. "All right, all right! Yeesh." He glared at her as he rubbed the back of his head. "Okay, so. The Joker's out again, right? And you finally found out about the redacted papers? That's where we are?"

The slightest of nods from Batman.

"Okay. Well, I'll tell you what's in those redacted papers. A formula. A formula to only the most significant discovery in the history of mankind. Compliments of me."

He frowned at the lack of _oohs_ and _ahs_ from his audience. He continued with a humph. "On its own, just sittin' in that vat, it don't do much. But given the right instrument - a portal gun, say, or some kind of missile - you can travel between dimensions."

"Oh, please. You expect us to believe that?" Harley slapped his arm almost playfully. "Interdimensional travel goo?"

"Hey, your precious puddin' is walking, talking evidence of it, babe."

Batman cut in before Harley could. "What do you mean?"

Rick rolled his eyes. "Oh boy, here we go! Way back machine t-burrraapppp- time."

* * *

"_What the hell do you think you're doing, Napier?"_

Jack's head shot up from the small journal he had open in his lap. His supervisor, Dr. Rick Sanchez, stood with fists clenched in the doorway to their lab.

Jack swallowed. He slapped the book. "Trying to make heads and tails out of whatever this is, doctor."

He hadn't time to react when Rick snatched the journal out of his hands.

"I don't hire you to snoop, Napier."

"I don't think I'm hired to live perpetually in the dark, either."

"_You're hired to do whatever I tell you to do."_

Jack stood, face red, after Rick shoved all his belongings off his desk in a mad sweep.

"The hell is your problem, Sanchez?"

"What's my problem? I'll tell you my problem, Napier. Little snoops like you. I-I never get a chance to get any real work done when the plant keeps sending spies like you to" -

"You're supposed to be working on a stabilizing element, not whatever this mumbo-jumbo" -

"_Mumbo-jumbo?_" Jack had seen his boss mad plenty of times before, but never like this. His thin waxy face was almost purple with rage. "You cretins have, have no idea how close I am in my work. How close I am to blowing all your asses out of the water."

"Then please, let me in!" Jack was suddenly desperate. "By god, Rick, do you have any idea how frustrating it is to sit on the sidelines? I can help, you know I can help. With whatever you're doing. You just...need to let me in!"

Rick stared into the young man's eyes. There was an appeal there, a promise.

And man, was Rick ever tempted.

He knew the young man was bored with his work. He was the most intelligent assistant Rick had ever worked with, and Rick knew from experience how easy it was for an active mind to go nuts on a rigid, unexciting schedule.

He obviously didn't give a shit about his work here - what intelligent mind wouldn't rebel at the constant maintenance, separation and preparation of samples, and those damned tedious accuracy checks? Hardly a fitting place to exercise one's genius, and Rick grudgingly admitted the kid did have genius.

Nowhere near his level, of course.

Jack Napier needed desperately to be part of something bigger than what Ace Chemicals offered him so far.

Yes, Rick was tempted. An assistant with an actual mind. An assistant he could bounce ideas off of, maybe keep him in check -

But then Rick's eyes fell on the framed picture he hadn't been able to reach to sweep off Jack's workspace. The clod and his wife embraced in front of some comedy club downtown.

Rick shook his head. "No, Jack. No. You don't get in on this. You hear me? You stick with what I tell you to do."

Every once in a while, Rick noted that the eager desperation in Jack Napier turned into a white hot rage the young man could scarcely contain. "_Fuck that."_ The usually mild-mannered young man was now nose to nose with Rick. "You don't get to treat me this way, Sanchez. Let me in, or - or -"

"Or _what?_" Rick's next words were casually venomous. "You'll go to the big bosses and tattle on daddy? Do that and I'll tell them about the times I've found you slacking off, writing jokes on your stupid scraps of paper you think I don't find. Stupid fucking jokes only your wife would laugh at. What, you think because you've had a few successful nights at an open mic you're, you're, the next George Carlin? Spare me. So go ahead, tell, and soon you'll be a laughingstock for other reasons."

Jack just stared at him.

"Maybe you think your rich parents back in Bludhaven can help you - oh, wait, that's right. They disowned your sorry ass after the scene you made at your brother's funeral." At Jack's crestfallen look, he sneered, "Didn't think I knew about that, did you, John Murphy? I'm sorry, you've had it legally changed now, Jack Napier." He took a swig from the flask he kept poorly hidden in his lab coat. "Your pathetic life isn't worth much to blackmail, but it's something." He belched.

Jack's face was still red, and there was no reading that tense, frozen expression.

After a long moment, he seemed to come to.

He took the badge off his lab coat and placed it on the desk.

He walked steadily out of the lab, out of the plant.

Rick never saw him again.

Five months later, Rick finished his work. The compound was complete. He held it in his beaker, in liquid form.

All at once, the suits came in. They told him they'd been investigating him ever since Napier, his seventh lab assistant in five years, walked out. Their investigation turned up that Rick Sanchez's credentials were phonies, that he was a high school dropout who'd never even been to college.

Rick pleaded, boasting that what he'd invented would make it all up to them. It was a ploy born from panic. He wasn't willing to share this with anyone. But he needed the dough. He needed -

Sneering, they ordered the technicians with them to take the solution in Rick's hands and pour it out, into the vat for later cleanup.

Rick, held back by security, watched as his life's work swirled down into the vats below, mixing with the water coolants.

They threw him out on his ass. Luckily they didn't file charges. They didn't want the bad publicity involved in admitting one of their chief engineers, who'd been with them for years, was a high school dropout.

That night, Rick finished his notes. He thought this would bring him some kind of closure, but instead he felt only a nagging sense that his work was unfinished. _Everything is so damn theoretical._ He took his flask out of his jacket.

There dwelt the emergency supply of his chemical compound, that he poured in before the suits noticed.

Despairing, close to suicide, Rick decided to hell with it, he'd test the theory out himself.

He took a sip.

At that exact moment, Jack Napier, ensconced in his Red Hood, fell into the vat filled with that same compound.

* * *

Rick looked up to the three listening.

Batman was stoic and silent as usual, Ivy fascinated as only a scientist could be.

Harley Quinn, however, was a confused mass of chaos. "W-wife? What wife? Mr. J was never a lab assistant, he was a big shot assassin before everything went kablooey! What are you talking about?"

"You're right. You're absolutely right. In this universe, Jack Napier was a hoodlum. In the one I'm talking about, he was a lab assistant."

"Well, what the heck? How do you know about this other universe?"

It was Batman who answered. "Because you sampled the chemicals."

"Got high off your own supply," Ivy added.

Rick shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a genius. I was right. Just a sip is all it takes to live simultaneously every different timeline that led to that moment. So even though in this timeline Jack Napier was never my lab assistant, never even worked there, I can remember the timeline where he did."

"Where he was married," Harley whispered. Ivy looked at her, concerned. She'd never sounded so far away before.

"And let me tell ya, just a sip of this stuff was enough to knock me off balance. It changes you, both mentally and physically. Notice my hair? Kinda bluish, right? Everything changes. It took the notes I'd written, my own knowledge of what I'd just done, to bring me back to some semblance of reality - to distinguish which timeline I'm in, all of that. And even now, still, there are times…." A rickety sigh. "There are times I get confused."

After a moment, Batman asked, "So a submersion…?"

Rick raised an eyebrow. "Like Napier's? Who never knew what he was falling into? Insanity. Absolute chaos and insanity. Especially when the chemicals did _that_ to his appearance." Another shrug. "Tough break. But didn't any of you ever wonder why some gangster turned mad clown suddenly had the know-how to create Joker Toxin, and the other chemical compounds he's unleashed over the years? Bits and pieces make their way in from every dimension, man. "

Harley jumped in. "But...his wife! What happened to Mr. J's wife?"

His eyes dimmed. "Oh, yeah. Her. Well, depends on the timeline. See, I've been able to...explore those dimensions a little more. In every one I've come across where he was married, right before he takes his little acid trip, something happens to Jeannie Napier."

All three heads shot up at that name.

He held out a finger for each point he made. "One, brrrrraaaa - she's always pretty far along in a pregnancy. Two, she dies: either from an accident, or from criminals trying to strong-arm your Mr. J into going along with their criminal enterprise. So, yeah, I figure that also contributes heavily to him going looney tunes."

Harley's head buzzed. "So...because you remember all those different timelines from taking just a sip, Mr. J….he...he can remember _her_ even if he never met her in this timeline?"

He thought about that. He thought about the dim visions he'd had after his own sip, of a woman not unlike Jeannie Napier. _Diane._ "If he has any lucid moments at all, I'm sure she's somewhere in his subconscious, rooting around like a raccoon through his mental garbage."

Batman's voice was dark. "What if she's still alive in this timeline? And he meets her?"

Rick's eyebrows flew up to his hairline and he chuckled. "Whooosh, talk about a mindfuck. Probably send him right over the edge all - allaaaarrrghhh all over again."

Batman said nothing more. Ivy stared into the distance, arms crossed.

Harley breathed heavily, staring down at her feet.

"Now will you all get the hell out of here? I need to take a massive shit and you weirdos are fucking up my groove."

* * *

Jeannie woke slowly, a low flame bringing her to consciousness.

There were candles burning on her breakfast nook. Jack was lighting them.

She sat up, puzzled. He was setting the table. Some quiches they'd picked up earlier were cooling on two of her plates.

"Jack? What time is it?"

Whiplash smile. "Time for a late-night snack."

His eyes were mysterious and hooded as he motioned her to join him. "Come on."

Stretching and yawning, she made her way over.

There was a bottle of champagne and two wine glasses waiting for her.

"Swank," she observed.

His laugh was low, almost - sad.

"Why don't you sit down, honey?"

She watched him closely as she did what he asked.

"What's up?"

He sighed and uncorked the champagne. He poured her a glass.

"I just...feel like celebrating, you know? What just happened between us…" he shook his head, expression warm. "It made me realize what I really want out of life."

Happiness, foreign, unknown happiness pounded in her chest. She accepted the glass in a sort of daze. "I know what you mean," she whispered.

It...it had been wonderful. She'd been warned of the pain, and so she'd feared it these many years, but the way he touched her, caressed her, how slow and sweet he was -

She'd hardly noticed any pain at all.

He sat across from her, tilting his head. "I hope you do," he said sincerely. He raised his glass. "Cheers, my love."

Her big, sunshiny smile answered him as she raised hers. "Cheers."

Another clink, then his eyes remained glued on her as she took a sip.

Her pupils dilated.

The glass slipped from her hand and shattered.

He smothered his instinct to reach out, to help. He watched her.

She coughed. Her eyelids fluttered like she was having a seizure.

She saw -

She saw more dashes of chipped red paint, a dash here, here, here, and here, sometimes no Neil, sometimes she's in San Francisco and moves here, sometimes she was born in Poland because her grandfather never moved, sometimes she's a dancer like Mom, sometimes she sings in a coffee house and meets an aspiring comedian at open mic and - sometimes -

It was all cascading through her, whirling around, like the merry-go-round at the end of _Strangers on a Train._

_The merry-go-round broke down...the merry-go-round broke down…._

When her eyes finally steadied, he thought he saw a shade of dark purple there in her irises.

She barely knew where she was - the little room in the boarding house, a carnival, Arkham? That ballet studio in Prague?

Only one consistency: Jack, with his bottle of champagne.

Jack who was in front of her now. However, he was also a little far away and hazy, like he was on his own projection screen. He took out a handkerchief and sprayed something on it.

He wiped his face, and very slowly white, green, and red appeared, and his laughter sounded more like sobbing.

All at once she remembered that Jack Benny was only his stage name, and he was born Benjamin Kublesky.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: There is Abuse ahead, Just in case you needed a warning of such a thing in this story.

* * *

He kept waiting for the punchline, and it never came.

Instead a creeping, oozing sensation of - _just not right-ness_ crawled up his spine as he watched her.

She was cradling her face in her hands, rocking back and forth.

The candles had burned down to their bases. Two hours had passed.

Soon she would lift her head and she would be laughing. Soon.

That's why he did this, of course. Wasn't it? He did it _for_ her.

He tried explaining this to her now. "I did it for us, Pookie! You and I, we obviously belong together. Why else would I have these visions of you? See, I have these craaaazy pictures of you lodged in my brain, you pregnant and happy and laughing. With me. Obviously...obviously that's a sign we're meant to be."

She'd stopped rocking, at least.

"But here's the thing, baby doll: hard as I tried these past couple weeks, I just don't have the knack for" - he shivered - "_normalcy_. No, down to the very depths of my dirty, dirty soul, I am the Clown Prince of Crime. Which means _you_ get to be my Clown Princess!" His voice rose with each word. "Sure, Harley tried her darndest, but that was obviously never gonna work out. No, it's you and me, Jeannie. J and J, out to conquer the world - starting with Gotham City. You've already got the madness down pat, poor thing, but you just needed that extra push to see what madness can really accomplish! I dropped you into the deep end, in other words." He held up the champagne bottle. "All's I did was add a little bit of the chemical compound from the acid bath that made me the fabulous loon you see before you, and any second now you'll see things the way I do."

Through her fingers and strands of hair, she saw his sick smile grow. "You and I, baby. Only you and I can defeat Batman."

He reached for one of her hands and she stood abruptly.

He finally got a good look at her face.

He didn't like what he saw.

There was no trace of laughter, no bright gleam of sadism in those now purplish doe eyes.

That sadness that had followed her like a shroud this whole time was now crystallized, and she was pale and drawn and the tears poured down her cheeks.

_Why, why isn't the acid working?_

Yet - there, her lips were jerking a little - kind of like a laugh?

Kind of.

She blinked, and suddenly stared at him. Hard.

"I think I'm going to go lie down now."

She turned on her heel and hurried to her bed. She closed the curtain behind her.

Joker was speechless, for once.

She...she just up and left!

He growled.

He threw open her curtain and snarled down at her. She lay on her side away from him, legs curled up into a fetal position.

His little Jeannie, broken and worn out -

_This isn't right, Joker, we don't do these kind of things to Jeannie._

He blocked out that thought.

He ranted and raved at her throughout the night. His fists hovered over her. _Don't you dare turn away from me, you little mouse, I, I, I just created you, I've given you freedom, you better look at me!_

What was it that kept him from pummeling her? He wanted to, he did, honest, but-

She was muttering to herself.

When he bent over to hear better, his heart about broke in two.

A low, sweet, silly, but genuine voice, so warm and tender -

_"You put the lime in the coconut, you drink it all up, you put the lime in the coconut" -_

For just a brief second the Joker was dormant and Jack Napier's eyes filled with tears.

Exhausted himself, Joker collapsed into the bed and pulled her into his arms. He sobbed himself to sleep in her hair. Again.

* * *

Yet it was his laughter, shrieked out in his sleep, that woke her up half a day later.

Her eyes flew open. She felt faintly queasy.

The Joker's arms were wrapped tightly around her stomach.

_Not Jack but it's Jack not the Jack down the hall the Jack the Jack I tried to help him he makes me laugh_

Her spinning vision focused on her clock.

Her gasp woke him up. Before he was aware, she wrenched herself free of his grasp and stumbled out of bed. She pulled her dress off.

The Joker's blood spiked. _Now, this, this is more like it_. "Ooh-la-la, doll face! Putting on a show for your fella?" He tutted in disappointment when she ignored him and threw on a shirt instead. The tutting turned into a deep guffaw as he realized -

"Are you _really_ getting ready for work? You silly" -

She suddenly stopped and hyperventilated, her hands on either side of her head. She stood there half-dressed, and her face held more furious disappointment and despair than he had ever seen.

Dimly he remembered that her shift was supposed to start four hours ago. She had missed yesterday's completely.

The Joker did what he had never, ever done before. He reached out a hand to steady her. "Hey, now - a mundane custodial job is nothing to flip one's lid over...there are much worthier things to flip one's lid over-''

But she cried out in anger at last, pushing him away and running out the door, one hand tying her apron around her.

The Joker was left staring after her, stunned. He then looked around the apartment as if it were the first time he was seeing it.

She...was she ignoring him?

A darkness filled his gut and made him chug breaths out his nose like a train off the rails.

* * *

Two days of missed work.

This sickening fact pressed out for the moment the leaden weight that had sunk her into oblivion again. Her memory of the past forty-eight hours was cloudy at best.

Her panic pushed her out of the apartment, past - him.

Now she was busting into the office, and the departing employees were giving her the eye (her shirt was buttoned unevenly, it wasn't tucked in, and her apron was madly askew), and she stumbled into her supervisor's office near the storage room.

Howard Warren had always struck her as a type similar to Morris back at Arkham, casual and disinterested, but friendly. She saw now, however, that his cold eyes lacked Morris's camaraderie.

Without looking up from his clipboard, he slipped her a check. Told her to get out and find work at some imaginary place that would accept her disappearing without word for two full shifts.

"Now, get out," he snapped when Jeannie simply stood in place. She stared blankly at the check in her hand, as if she didn't recognize what it was.

She lifted her head, and the blank, questioning gaze she gave Warren irritated him.

He stared back, squinting. "Jeez, are you on something? Your eyes look...weird. Shit. You better get outta here before I call the police. The doc from Thomas Wayne didn't say anything about you being a junkie. Now, I'm not gonna say it again: _get out_."

Warren jumped in his seat when her strange strangled laugh burst out of her. He was on the verge of calling security when she suddenly turned and ran out of the office.

* * *

Jeannie was floating, she was floating down the sidewalk, crossing the street and trying not to laugh as cars honked and swerved to avoid her. Oops, she forgot to wait for the light to change! Silly goose.

God, she felt like -

She felt like her blood was on fire, and that her feet were made of paper, and maybe she needed to relax a little.

She floated into the first establishment she came across. She'd seen it before from the bus on the way home. It was a dive bar. It was close to evening, so crowds were starting to flock in. The regulars were a shuffling crew of tattooed veterans and old timers from the canneries.

Jeannie, for once, felt no fear as she joined the fray.

She never drank much before. She decided she hated beer, but almost like a punishment, a self-flagellation, she downed one, then another, then another. She sat clinging to the bar, and didn't see the gray-haired bartender roll his eyes as she giggled ever so softly into each full glass.

She'd thrown most of her cash on the counter. About sixty bucks were left.

She took another long gulp.

Jack Kublesky had never existed. Maybe Jack Napier never had. Maybe John Murphy never had. Maybe it was always him, always the clown, always the man with hands and voice and shoulders like Jack, but not him, not him.

But he was.

The jukebox was playing something she didn't recognize. It was probably something new, but new to Jeannie meant anything from the past twenty years.

It was loud, it was brass, and the woman screeched the lyrics like a mountain lion, far up in the hills.

_Neil had once quietly shaken the Janowski siblings awake, whispering that they could hear the cougars howling in the distant darkness past the woods. He'd had the mischievous look of a little kid as he hushed them near the living room window, and it was such a fun moment as they listened to the wildcat's song._

Jeannie couldn't believe it. She liked this raucous tune.

"I like this," she announced to the regulars around her. She stood and slapped the counter for emphasis. "Why isn't anyone dancing?" She made her way clumsily toward the pool table and started swaying to the shrieks and moans from the jukebox.

She heard a few appreciative comments behind her, some chuckles. She turned around and smiled at the nearest man, a big, husky guy in a camo jacket and hunter's cap. He was leaning against the pool table, game forgotten as his beady eyes roved over her. He stroke the pool cue suggestively. He had the smile of a wolf.

Without a word, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kept on dancing.

* * *

Joker raced down the hall back to his apartment. He tore open his closet doors and popped open the false back, and rummaged through his arsenal.

He'd fire bomb Shore Business Solutions, put Joker Toxin in the vents, rub it in her face what happened when she ignored her Clown Prince -

He raised an eyebrow at the rapid, chipper knocks on his door.

_Oh. Harley's found me. Goodie._

He opened the door and there was Pooh all dolled up from traveling, wearing a little red and black-checkered dress with one red high-heeled shoe, and one black.

"Hi, Puddin'! Miss me?" She leapt girlfully into his arms.

He bit back his growl. He really wasn't in the mood, but who knows, there might be a way to make her useful, somehow.

He patted her head. "My clever little Harley girl! What a smart baby! How ever did you trace me?"

Harley's wide adoring grin stayed frozen on her face, and those bright blue eyes gleamed with such vehemence she resembled a possessed Kewpie doll. "By finally thinking to trace _her_."

Joker's eyes widened a fraction, then the growl came out.

She spoke quickly. "See, one of my former professors works at Thomas Wayne and had access to her address. I reminded him of how he helped me fudge some credentials early on, and whaddaya think, Puddin'? I got what I needed from him."

She squeaked as he squeezed her arms painfully.

"_Whose_ address, exactly?"

Harley swallowed. She was aware how close he was to the brink, but she knew what she had to do. "Jeannie Janowski Napier's address, of course! That is, your wife's address."

The floor was suddenly hurtling toward her, and her cheek felt ready to burst. The slap echoed in her stinging ear.

Her heart fluttered, but she forced herself to her feet again.

"What are you babbling about?" His voice was full of slithering, venomous snakes, but she was determined now, she was determined -

"Well, she ain't your wife in this dimension, of course, but in other dimensions you were married to her! But oh, Mr. J. She was real mean to you. Left you every time."

She gasped as he grabbed her throat. "I'm not going to ask you again, _sweetheart_. What. Are. You. Talking about?"

As he still had her in a choke-grip, she simply held up her bag.

He dropped her, grabbing the bag and tearing it open.

A journal was inside. "The hell?"

"Dr. Rick Sanchez," Harley said in a quiet voice from where she cowered by the door, massaging her throat. "Those are his notes. I paid him a visit, then slipped this in my bag when he wasn't lookin'." _Then Bats chased Pammie and me to that old warehouse after the old man fell asleep in his chair, and old Bats is probably still trying to figure out how to get out of those vines Ivy trapped him in…._

She didn't want to mention Batman yet, or Pam. This was her moment.

Joker frowned. _Sanchez_. Hadn't he recalled that name recently…?

"Anyway, Sanchez worked at the chemical plant, Puddin'. He was fired before you broke in. He's responsible for what you fell into that night. That journal explains why you're special and remember stuff from other timelines!"

Joker ignored her and opened to the first page.

**The multiverse is real. I have discovered the chemical compound that can reveal each permutation of our lives to us…**

Like a camera zooming quickly out of a frame, Joker felt himself pulled into a whole other scene, a whole other world. He was in a lab overlooking some chemical vats, and he was young and confused and he was sitting on a stool reading this very page.

He continued.

He turned away from Harley.

His silence, his back to her, terrified her more than anything, and she couldn't say why.

_You should stay quiet. You shouldn't say anything._

But she was so nervous, and she hated when she couldn't read his face, because then she couldn't tell when everything would suddenly change, and he'd -

"So you see, Puddin'? This is why you don't always know what your past was, and why your stories change and stuff!" She was glowing inside. She, Harley, she was the first person to get it, to really understand him and the way he was. Yeah, Bats and Pammie had heard everything she heard, and of course Sanchez knew all about it. However, not one of them, only her, only she cared what all this meant for the Joker. How it was all the key to his character.

Yes, Harley had conquered her Bundy, her Zodiac, her Jack the Ripper, her Dr. Lecter. She'd figured him out. She knew now why he was so violent and obsessed with chaos; "...it's because you're a scared little boy who doesn't know where you are!" Tears filled her eyes and she approached him with her hand extended toward his shoulder, very delicately, very hesitantly.

_I'm like Christine in Phantom of the Opera, about to unmask the monster and make him a man!_

"Deep down you remember being a loving husband and expectant father, but then this bitch betrays you to the cops and leaves you" -

Joker's shoulders shook and Harley hoped, oh, did this mean...was her angel crying?

No: he was wracked with laughter. "Big mistake there, Harl." He turned around, and oh wait, there were tears there, but there was nothing gentle or touching about his smile. He waved the journal in the air. "You've shown me that all those visions of mine are real, and not hallucinations. You've shown me maybe I'm not quite so whackers as I surmised. That means, I _do_ remember." He brought that smiling face down to hers and she flinched as he pinched her cheek, the cheek he'd just struck.

There was something strained and oddly _human_ in his voice as he said, "And you're not telling it right."

Harley trembled. She tried to laugh self-deprecatingly. "I'm not?"

He shook his head, smiling, smiling.

This had to be one of their bits, one of their classic bits, surely! She bat her eyes playfully, put a finger to her lip. "Oops!"

She was so happy when he threw his head back and laughed at her hijinx. They were so good together. He understood why she said what she did. He understood she'd say anything to get him to stop _caring_ about Jeannie, and see that it was her all along, Harley, who truly loved and deserved him. He understood -

"You are a funny one, Harley!"

Her cheeks flushed and her smile was wide and bright.

"However, my dear, you do make one terrible error, time and time again."

She twitched a little. "What's that?"

He tucked the journal away into his vest pocket. "You never do get the joke, do you?"

Uh-oh. "Sure...sure, I do! Um, what joke is that again? Heh-heh?"

His expression was so serene as he stroke her pigtails. He spoke to her like a schoolmaster teaching a pupil a nursery rhyme. "The set-up is that you're so devoted to me that you turned your life up-side down and you've done some absolutely horrible things out of love for me..." this time the pinch of her cheek was oddly gentle. "And the punchline is I just don't give a single, solitary damn about you, my dear."

He burst into laughter, teeth long like piano keys.

He covered her face with his hand and pushed her against the wall.

She couldn't speak as tears were blocking her throat. She saw him advance from where she shrank against the wall, and heard that dark, awful snicker creep nearer.

He rolled up his sleeve.

Then he turned with whiplash speed toward his door, and both he and Harley could hear down below the front door crash open. _Her_ laughter floated up to them.

And a man's.

There was a clunk and a whoop, then more laughter.

Joker had apparently forgotten Harley's presence. He left the room and stood out on the landing, looking down.

Jeannie was lying on her side on the stairs, tears streaming down her face as she laughed and hiccuped.

Her apron was gone and her bra was showing from the gaps in her unevenly buttoned shirt.

Looming over her, barely standing himself, was a large-framed man in a hunting cap and camo jacket. His face was red with booze and lust as he cackled down at Jeannie.

Her bleary eyes swam up to the Joker, standing above.

Although her insane smile gleamed at him and laughter poured out of her throat, her eyes were filled with pain.

"Why, Mr. Kralik! My secret admirer! Was it really you all along, leaving me letters at the post office?" Her voice was a voluptuous whisper, just like Margaret Sullavan's.

She and her companion laughed again.

Perhaps if it were just Jeannie the Joker could have exulted. The acid-cocktail was working!...maybe.

He loved nothing more than when someone miserable and glum transcended such odious states of mind and snapped, embracing insanity and a good laugh; and how sweet that it was the wacky dame he'd been after all this time, the one he fed that chemical brew to?

_His wife from another life._

But it wasn't just Jeannie. It was the man with the red face and the wandering hand just now reaching for the small of her back.

The moment his hand landed on her, stroking the skin under her shirt, the Joker saw red.

Harley heard a totally new sound come out of the Joker from where she hovered behind him. It was somewhere between a keening wail and a banshee cry as he shot like a bullet downstairs.

He pulled the man off of Jeannie. The bearish oaf either hadn't recognized his assailant or was too drunk to care. "Hey, knock it off, pal. This here's the love of my life."

He and Jeannie burst out laughing, she hiding her face in her arms on the stairs, shaking, shaking, in hysterics.

It was only when she heard the man gasp did she raise her head. Terror like a lance seared through her as she saw the blood gushing out of his neck.

She screamed.

The stairs faded into the trees.

She didn't see Joker take the penknife out of the man's throat, dropping him as he bled out on the ground.

She didn't feel Joker take her by the hair and drag her up the stairs.

She didn't see him push away a cowering Harley Quinn, who almost stumbled down the steps.

She saw nothing, nothing at all. When the door slammed shut and trapped her in a dark room alone with the Joker, she just laughed. It was so freeing, just to laugh.

* * *

Ivy paced outside the boarding house, hands stuffed in her coat pockets. She kept darting glances at the door, particularly after she saw that little Jeannie lady enter with that big drunk lech.

That couldn't be good.

And Harley was in there….

No, now Harley was coming out, limping with a bruise on her cheek and tears pouring out of her eyes.

Ivy was going to feed that clown into a Venus flytrap, limb by limb, piece by piece -

"Harley girl! What happened?"

Harley was uncharacteristically silent as she slid into the passenger seat of the car, waiting for Ivy to get into the driver's side.

Ivy did, and didn't say a word. She waited.

At last, without looking at Ivy, tears still streaming down her face, Harley said, "He doesn't love me, does he?"

She spoke in such a straight-forward but broken voice.

Ivy tucked one of her loose blonde locks behind her ear.

Then: "No, Harley. He doesn't."

She let that be, let it sink in.

Harley said nothing for several moments, and just stared ahead into the darkness.

Ivy couldn't take the silence; usually it was impossible to get Harley to stop talking. "Harley, he doesn't love anyone but himself."

Harley shook her head, smirking ruefully. "No, Red. I get why you think that. Maybe I woulda thought that too, but...no, I think he loves her."

"You mean the woman he tried to kill and then stalked before revealing himself and laughing at her expense?" Ivy had interrogated the shell-shocked landlady as she'd left the house just moments before Jeannie arrived, bags in tow._ I'm gettin' out of this place, I got my husband's pension, I don't need this shit._

Harley closed her eyes, her head slumped forward. "I used to think the outbursts, the beatings, all of that, were because he didn't know how to deal with his feelings for me. But I really paid attention tonight, Red. The way he treated me versus how he treated her. I was like an annoying mosquito he wanted to bat away, but the second he saw her with that guy, something really snapped in him. He'd only act that way if he loved her."

Ivy's chuckle was bitter. "Harl, you have a pretty twisted view of love."

Harley shook her head and shrugged. She was defeated. "What does it matter? I don't understand love, I guess, because I'm unlovable."

"Harley -"

"Red, think of all I've done for him. Think of how I've devoted myself to him, made myself over for him. I gave up my career for him, my freedom. I'm wanted in twelve states, did you know that? I was his maid, I was his lackey, I took the fall for him I don't know how many times. I watched so many old cartoons I swear I went cross-eyed. And yet he _still_ doesn't care." She threw her hands up in the air, let them hover for a second, then fall back into her lap. "It's because I have so much love to give but no one ever wants it."

In Harley's mind she saw Natalie sneering at her, deriding her taste in books and boyfriends. She saw the judges, unimpressed, looking disdainfully at her pink sequined leotard before Harley attacked with the baton.

Swallowing them all with his shadow was Mr. J.

"Harley. Look at me."

Harley reluctantly turned away from the window.

She always lost herself a little when she did really, truly look at Ivy. The former botanist didn't look quite real. The streetlights outside the car highlighted every one of her pale green features, turned her eyes into glowing emeralds. That red curtain of hair was like a cascade of lava. It was a red that didn't exist anywhere else on this earth.

"Harley, I've never cared about the human race. The only time I take humans into account is when I try to kill them for what they do to our planet, to our Mother. For that, they can all go to hell, and I'll smile that day."

Harley closed her eyes as Ivy caressed her face. "But you, Harley. For you, my silly clown bird, I'd…"

Her sigh was like a breeze softly rustling some branches. "For you I've played the sidekick. For you I've played the fool. And Harley?"

Both hands were cradling Harley's face now. Ivy wiped away her tears with her thumbs. "For you I'd do it all over again. I want to do stupid, reckless things with you. For you. I love you, Harley." She kissed her forehead. "Only you."

Harley crumpled in her arms.

All the tears she choked back for years now came out, on Ivy's shoulder. In her arms.

Her head was still buried in Ivy's shoulder as they drove away.

* * *

As the Joker stood over Jeannie, who was keeled over on the bed, laughing and sobbing by turns, punching the mattress, he realized, yes, he did remember.

He remembered.

But - he didn't want to remember. He didn't want to remember, because that meant it was Jeannie on the bed, laughing and crying, and he'd - he'd - he'd given her those chemicals.

He did _that_ to _Jeannie_.

John Murphy and Jack Napier stood aghast inside of him, disbelieving they - any of them - could do that to Jeannie.

Another sharp dive into deja vu as she sobbed from the bed, "They fired me! Those bastards, those bastards..."

_"I've absolutely fucked us over."_

A great sadness he'd never known but somehow always known enveloped him.

He was hunched over, grinding his teeth, and he cursed at her. "You fucking little twerp, you stupid bint, what have you done, what have you done to me, I'll fucking - I'll - I'll - I'll show you - and then you'll -"

He was pulling his own hair, and he felt like a Jack-in-the-Box about to pop out. He was on the verge of he didn't know what.

He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting all those different voices of his, each telling him to do something different. He wanted them to shut up so bad.

She was so light-footed that it was only when he heard the front door open that he realized she'd gone. Her purse was missing, too.

As Joker raced after her down the stairs, he saw her outside on the curb, hailing a cab.

She crawled inside the backseat just as Joker burst out into the street, and the car barreled down the road, away from him.

She was headed east, and he instinctively knew where she was going.

The anger slowly faded as he realized-

He saluted the cab as it turned a corner. "See you soon, sweetheart."

He laughed drunkenly as he stepped over the corpse on the stairs. He had some very quick packing to do.

_Oh, Gotham City, how I've missed you._

His laughter rang in the now empty boarding house, empty besides the bloody mass of flesh at the bottom of the stairs.


	11. Chapter 11

Luckily Nightwing and Batgirl knew where to look. An old lady walking her dog reported seeing Ivy and Harley peel out of the abandoned warehouse by the waterfront.

The two vigilantes arrived in just enough time to shoot at and pull away the vines before they squeezed Batman to unconsciousness.

The Dark Knight dropped to the ground. He took a moment to center himself, going through his breathing exercises.

Dick and Barbara stood at the ready.

Batman raised his head. "I need to go to Thomas Wayne Memorial."

Fully recovered, he swept past them.

His rescuers watched the Batmobile drive away.

"A thank you would have been nice."

"Oh, shut up, Dick."

* * *

Joker loved the rush of a pursuit. He felt less like a trodden-down human and more like a clown balloon, floating above everything, so far away, as he sped down the backroads leading to Gotham.

He hummed and whistled "Everyone Says I Love You" as he maneuvered the pickup truck he'd secured from a neighbor of Mrs. Borowitz's. He'd saluted the driver after pulling him out by his collar and leaving him stunned and bruised by the side of the road.

An electric glee heated the Joker's blood. The tall smoke stacks of the chemical plant appeared over the hill.

_Home sweet murderous home._

He couldn't stop giggling as he parked abruptly at the river's end. Hysteria was bubbling out of him, and he didn't know if he wanted to staunch it.

It wasn't quite morning yet.

Far, far down at the other end of the river, he saw through the darkness a quiet small figure, sitting on a bench, staring not at the factory but at the river.

He straightened his bow-tie, checked his teeth in the rearview mirror.

He hopped out of his car and began sauntering down the narrow river bank.

The river bank.

* * *

_It was a day like all the rest in this Godforsaken town._

The sky was steel gray, the streets black with oil and grime. He could see the plumes of sickly white smog billowing out of the plant's stacks. He approached the side of the river by the barbed wire fence, the same side he always walked, every fucking day.

_Another exciting chapter in the continuing adventures of Jack Napier._

Yep. Jack Napier now. Fucking Jackanapes for real.

As he trudged along the bank, he tried not to think of Hal's funeral, but when was he not thinking about it in the back of his mind?

He always saw before him that somber, class appropriate gathering in Bludhaven's most tasteful funeral home. Closed casket: Hal's face had a hole in it the size of a golf ball.

Jack had stood in the back against the dark burgundy walls, unmoving, arms at his sides. Unblinking and pale.

His mother's hysterical keening pounded in his temples.

Walter Murphy, with a solemn dignity made more poignant by his quiet grief, shook the hand of each incoming guest. His posture, his grim but mournful expression, made him look exactly like a bald eagle: so Noble, Mr. America's Father.

_Sam the Eagle._

Jack felt a twist of nausea and bile swirling around his guts as he watched his father clasp an old woman's hand. He nodded and closed his eyes as she blessed him.

Walter's one remaining son collapsed into his designated seat, as if he were a ventriloquist dummy after the puppeteer dropped him casually back in the trunk when the show was done.

Yet in every good horror movie, that's when the dummy comes to life.

For Jack, it was when Walter stepped to the podium and started his eulogy.

His strong hands were placed on each side of the podium: it was a gesture of control, of ownership. No bumbling, stuttering eulogy from Walter Murphy. Consternated wrinkles decorated the broad forehead.

Look there: the impenetrable human mountain had tears in his eyes.

The Weeping American. Our poor lost boys.

At last Walter Murphy spoke, removing one steady hand from the podium to rest on top of the closed casket, draped in an American flag. "Today we bury the best part of myself, of this community, of this country. He was my boy - but he died a man. He was the kind of man I would have been proud to know even if he hadn't been mine." His voice finally broke on the last word.

He lifted his head, squinting to hold back the tears.

"But he _was_ mine. My boy." Another slow pat of the coffin. "And he always will be."

Jack's laugh had the effect of a siren during air raids: a sickening, deathly shock. It unsettled everyone. They all turned and gasped, and someone even knocked back their chair when they scrambled to their feet.

He felt an aunt or grandmother's hands on him, hushing, soothing, patting -

He wrenched out of their grips and stood with a yelp.

He pointed straight at Watler - Walter, who was more like a statue than ever from where his shining eyes glared at his living son.

"You _fucking_ hypocrite. This is a joke!" He kicked an empty seat and turned around. He was the emcee at a cabaret, hands spread out to introduce the show. "_Willkommen, Bienvenue, Velcoooome!_ All of this is a goddamn joke, everybody! Welcome to the Murphy circus, three bits to gander at the freak show!"

He guessed Walter said something then, because he heard his voice booming like thunder behind him. Jack couldn't make out the words, so he faced his father and continued. "Everyone here knows you turned your back on your son, cut him off, but no one knows why! Welp, folks, it was because my brother was in love with a boy. A good ol' gay American boy. Gay as the day is long. Gay, gay, gay. Hey, Sammy - remember when we got all gay together at Zachary Morgan's kegger? Good kisser, Sammy!"

He reeled back as his father struck him. More gasps from the studio audience.

They turned to shrieks as Jack lunged at his father and knocked his former hero to the ground. They jostled the casket.

Irene wailed unceasingly, creating a sort of background chorus to the father and son tussle.

Things got a little stagey in Jack's mind after the parishioners pulled them off of each other. Walter Murphy cast him out, disowned him, bid him never darken his towels again. The old man had even straightened and pointed to the funeral home doors as the crowd shrank away toward the walls. It made a very cinematic image.

After a bit, Jack smiled. With a casual serenity, he gave his father the bird and a gookie, parting ways and never seeing him or Irene (_wailing_) ever again.

He got drunk and applied to have his name legally changed. Shit, it was approved.

Jack Fucking Napier.

(No, not really Fucking, but it might make a good punchline sometime. Someday he was going to one of those open mic nights in downtown Gotham. Honest. He'd work this all out onstage. Cheaper than therapy).

Basically, everything else just sort of pieced together after that, like a dull puzzle of an industrial hellscape. He still had his scholarship, and without anyone to care about or any social life to maintain, grades were easy-peasy. He graduated early.

He floated his resume around various pharmaceutical companies and plants, and who knew Ace Chemicals paid the best? What was so important about what they were brewing?

He didn't care much. He took the job.

His boss was a dick, but there was something about Rick Sanchez that unsettled Jack more than pissed him off. Maybe it was like looking in a mirror, seeing what awaited Jack now that he had no friends or family, and only his career to grow bitter over. Maybe in twenty or so years he'd be sneaking drinks out of his flask while tracking acid levels.

Jack found he didn't care that much either way. Whatever happened happened, he guessed.

He found a reasonably humble apartment in one of the nicer working class neighborhoods. It was just a block or so away from the plant. He liked the walk. It gave him a chance to cool his head before work actually started. He'd been there about six months.

He was sleepwalking through life.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a reflection across from his of a petite figure in an oversized overcoat with hair tied back in a kerchief.

He looked across the river.

The Girl was walking on the other side and his heart almost stopped.

It was her. He knew it.

He knew it even though when he last saw her, she was no more than fifteen, which would make her about, what, nineteen now? So she could conceivably look different now, and this young woman simply bared a marked resemblance to his Machine-Gun-Laugh Sweetie, his Silent Pal that last year at Fort Joseph High.

But no, it was Her: she was doing that thing where she looked like she was trying to think of a punchline, biting back her smile, eyes cast down and looking this way slowly, that way slowly.

_He remembered senior year's Halloween dance, when he, Sam, and Zach trolled the halls dressed as zombies. They jumped out at some girls coming out of the bathroom, and it was Jack's idea because he'd seen her go in with her friends. She laugh-screamed and hid behind trash cans, laughing all the way down the hall, her eyes always slowly going back to him until they reached the gym and she disappeared inside with her friends on the dance floor._

He smiled wickedly at the form across from him.

He started groaning like a zombie now, and yes, there go her eyes rolling over warily to the man across the way, who was dragging his leg with arms raised stiffly ahead of him.

She laughed nervously, then she finally dared looking at his face and her expression rose like the sun.

"_Mr. Snodgrass!"_

"_Baby!"_

They raced laughing to the end of the river and impulsively hugged.

It all came tumbling out, the happily surprised explanations, the jokes they never told each other.

This was her third month interning as a file clerk at the playing card company next door to the plant. She had been taking the bus, but she recently moved to a closer neighborhood and could walk now.

Turned out she lived just down the street from him.

Turned out her name was Jeannie Janowski.

"Hey, Jeannie, I know this is sudden and all, but what time do you take lunch? There's this coffee house just around the corner" -

She snorted and slapped his arm. "Well, duh, of course I'll meet you there! I've had a mad crush on you for years."

She checked her watch, said _whoop_, then raced away toward the playing card administrative office. She yelled over her shoulder. "Meet you there at 12:30."

He doffed his imaginary hat at her.

They laughed through lunch, sputtering into their coffee. Next, there was dinner at her place. And of course, every work day they walked along the river together, parting ways at the end.

Their third date he told her everything about his family. About his name change, about Hal's funeral.

Her eyes were pained for him. When he finished, she whistled lowly, and whispered tenderly, "God, your old man's an asshole."

Yes, Jack decided. She was the one.

However, it was the Gotham Film Festival that really cemented things.

Jack was buddies with the projection screener and got a discount deal on the tickets. The last movie played was a restored classic, _The Shop Around the Corner._ She squeezed his hand when Jimmy told Margaret the truth: Mr. Kralik and her anonymous correspondent were one and the same.

Jeannie smiled first at the screen and then at Jack. Her face glowed in the darkness of the theater. At that moment she was almost beautiful.

He realized then what he'd always known about her. He had decided after Walter there was no such thing as unconditional love, but now he knew -

He squeezed her hand right back.

* * *

Joker stood over Jeannie, his shadow swallowing her from where she sat quietly on the bench.

This bench hadn't been here before - it sat in almost the exact spot where they had hugged and laughed after recognizing each other, almost fifteen years ago in another dimension.

She was real, that was real, the worst thing was it was all _real._

He didn't know what to say.

She was the first to speak. "Hello, Jack."

He shuddered. "Don't much like that name anymore, now that all the metaphorical cards are on the table."

She raised an eyebrow, still not looking away from the water. "Well, I'm _not_ calling you Joker."

He knew that tone. He knew it because he knew her. He knew it was her way of saying _I don't want to fight about this because it's stupid, but here's my take, and I'm not budging on it._

He chuckled, but for once it wasn't laced in madness.

He dropped down beside her on the bench.

"Well...how are we feeling, patient? Looked like you were succumbing to looniness there for awhile. I thought my little stunt was working, but now…"

"Now I've had a little time to process it all."

He glanced at her. "And?"

She finally looked at him, and even though there was indeed some dark violet there in her eyes, the conspiratorial grin she gave him was _hers._

"And I'm a survivor, baby. Maybe you couldn't make me snap the way you wanted because I've already snapped, lots of times." She knocked her shoulder against his. "And I always come back. Maybe a little worse for wear, but I make it through." She turned back to studying the river, eyes heavy-lidded. "I survive."

A black cloud filled him. "Not every time."

He dropped the journal into her lap.

She opened it tentatively, her hand at first hovering uncertainly over the pages much like when she examined Poison Ivy's Siren.

As she read, he whispered into her ear in a voice full of so much raw evil, so much raw hatred and despair. "Sometimes you get kidnapped and murdered because your husband was an idiot. Sometimes you electrocute yourself because it was a million to one accident, and you always were a dummy when it came to cords. Sometimes a boiler explodes, and sometimes it's an accident and sometimes it isn't."

She said nothing and turned a page.

His chest burned. "You go ahead and keep reading. I'm going to talk to you, but you can't look at me. Do you understand?"

Jeannie turned another page. There was something almost plaintive in his question, and it threatened to soften her. However, she knew that Neil could be plaintive and sincere, too, especially when he brought out the ax.

She said nothing, but she did nod in assent.

"My whole drive here I was determined to kill you if you hadn't accepted your proper role by my side. Then maybe, I dunno, kill myself. I mean, I'd take out Bats and Gotham, too, don't worry about that. Kill you, quick rummage for a nuclear device, then that's all, folks! Heh!"

He thought he heard her snort, but maybe it was just a hiccup of terror. She was awfully obedient, eyes still glued on Sanchez's sprawling notes.

He suddenly buried his face hard in her hair. Hard.

She smelled like wind and wood sap.

It was painful, excruciating, getting the next part out. He said it almost into her scalp so deeply was his face embedded there. "But I don't want to do that. I don't want to hurt you. At the same time, I'm very close right now to throwing you off this bench and into the river. It's - it's - it's - kinda tough wrestling with all that, as you can imagine."

Another hiccup-snort.

_She always did get my humor._ But - back then - in that other life - he'd made sure until his acid trip that the punches stayed punchlines. She was laughing because right now they were just words. The way she was trembling told the truth: she'd experienced all the horror and abuse the Joker had ever heaped on anyone, and so she knew that he meant it. She knew that the joke was funny until it was real.

_Everything is funny until it's real._

"So," he continued. "What's next?"

At last she closed the book. "Well, there's a reason you were the engineer and I was the file clerk." _Or a singer, or a dancer, or a single mother struggling to make ends meet._ "I could barely grasp all that. But I think…" She stared at the stacks rising from the plant, then once again, always back to the water. "I think I get it. I think I know what…_dimension_ I'm in, which Jeannie I am."

He noticed her hand was light on her stomach.

He flinched, closing his eyes tight.

But he could hear her as she said, "So...the baby…."

"Shut up."

"I see."

Silence between the pair.

Then in a quiet breath she said, "I'd hoped I'd only imagined Junior."

It was the quiet, frank, matter-of-fact tone of her voice. He remembered her rolling her eyes when he presented the baseball mitt to her pregnant stomach, her laugh a soft exhale.

Something broke and the Joker wept beside her.

He couldn't stop. His face was in his hands, and now he was the one rocking back and forth, back and forth.

Only when she leaned in could she make out his high-pitched whine: "_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…."_

She gently clutched his wrist and he suddenly felt so warm. "Shh, Jack. Jack, listen to me. I don't know if I'll ever fully understand what's going on here, but that's...that's not important right now. I came here for the same reason you did. We met here, and so here is where we can say goodbye."

He stopped rocking. He felt queasy.

"I will always love you, Jack. Remember that, okay? I can't stay with you, I can't be your Clown Princess, but I do love you. And hey," she shook his wrist. "It's not _just_ because I'm ever so morally superior to the situation. I simply don't have the stamina. I got winded just walking to this bench." She made some mock-wheezing noises.

The Clown Prince laughed into his tears.

Her voice quieted. "I don't suppose there's any use in asking if you're so madly in love with me you'd be willing to change your wicked ways?"

_Yes yes yes_ was screamed silently between them, and neither knew which of them was thinking it, or if both of them were, or if they were both just crazy.

However, the second he met her gaze, she saw the truth.

She wasn't going to fight him. He realized that underneath it all - underneath the trauma, the nerves, that horrible _lostness_ \- she was a logical little person.

She kissed his temple. "All right. You've made your bed for now, I see. Stay well, my love. Please get better. For me or for yourself, I don't care. But please try. Someday."

One more squeeze of his wrist, then she stood. She had just enough cash left for a bus ride to the nearest police precinct. She'd dutifully report her recent ordeal, then whatever happened happened.

"_Hey!"_

She looked down.

The tears looked wrong on him, as he laughed and smiled that rictus-like grin. "This _situation_...It reminds me of a joke!"

He swept to his feet, hands spread out to an imaginary audience, stance a lot like Jack Benny's during his opening monologues.

She was transported to his first night at open mic. He was so nervous, she could tell. There luckily weren't a lot of people in the cramped nightclub, so she was easy to spot in the front row when he took a quick look around the room.

She nodded at him, bright-eyed and bright-smiled. He'd practiced this one in front of her for a week now.

_You got this, Kublesky._

"See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum…"

* * *

When Batman arrived at Thomas Wayne, he sought out Dr. Oates. He'd played possum there in the vines, convincing Harley and Ivy that he was already unconscious. He heard Harley say Oates's name to Ivy. "That creep will give me anything I ask of him."

All it took for Oates to give the Dark Knight the same was just his presence, looming in the doorway of the doctor's office.

When Batman called the boarding house, a police officer answered. There was no one there when they arrived but a dead body at the bottom of the stairs.

"_Apparently the neighbors saw Joker running out of this house after some lady in a taxi, then he stole a pickup truck. The driver called it in. No one's here, though. Just a note on some stationary: 'See you soon, Batsy.' There's also a drawing of something that...looks like a beaker?"_

_Not messing around with subtlety today, Joker._

At least this saved him the trip to Jersey.

When he arrived at the plant, he heard their shrieks and hollers before he saw them. They were silhouetted huddled on a bench by the river.

When he reached them, the Joker was on his knees before her, head buried in her lap from where she sat on the bench. She stroked his hair as she would a child.

They were doubled over in tears, laughing together.

* * *

**Notes:** There's a brief epilogue that I'll hopefully get up tomorrow, then after that, abee-abee-abee-that's all, folks!


	12. Epilogue

Rebecca Brown was pleased the temperature was finally starting to cool down a little. It hadn't been a terribly blistering summer, but still: California weather was California weather, even in early September, apparently.

She said goodbye to Delia at the ticket stand. Rebecca was done for the day; she'd gotten the thank-you letters to the donors done.

She was glad Northern California was working out for her. It wasn't as hot as other areas of the state, but sunny enough to always look scenic; cliche but true, the brighter weather did do wonders for her peace of mind.

She eyed some hats and scarves in the display windows she walked past. This was such a quaint, touristy little city. She loved it. She eyed one especially cute polka dot headband, and ran her fingers through her short strands.

Her hair was now cut into a sporty little bob, and she felt like the perky new look was quickly fitting her new mood. The bangs shaded her violet-ish eyes and made them a little less prominent. Of course, the injections Batman gave her helped there, too. She was confident now which timeline she was in, and she no longer suffered the confusion and disorientation that plagued her the weeks following that fatal glass of champagne.

She owed the Wayne Foundation everything else - Batman had gotten in touch with the man himself, Bruce Wayne, who decided to sponsor her relocation. The lawsuit money was still coming in from Brockbridge's belated trial.

When Mr. Wayne had personally interviewed her and asked what she would like to do with her new windfall and his backing, she hadn't known what to say. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Wayne casually brought up a small town California theater that played classics and independent movies. The owners were looking to sell.

It took some real convincing on his part, not to mention on Leland and Davitz's part, before she felt ready. Same for the name change: was it really necessary?

Yes, both Wayne and Batman had separately told her. Yes, it was.

A year later, and here she was happier than she'd ever been, since her childhood, at least.

She did feel a pang at the thought of her childhood. Yes, the hardest part about leaving Gotham was leaving Janusz behind. Really, though, wasn't she being a hypocrite? It wasn't like she'd visited him much before. Too afraid of facing her survivor's guilt, Dr. McTavish told her. Yes, probably that.

She finally bucked up enough courage to visit him before she left. He'd smiled his easy Grandpa grin in his old rocking chair in the nicely kept room at the nursing home, and nodded pleasantly at everything she said. He understood nothing.

She knew it would be the last time she ever saw him.

Before she left, she kissed him on the forehead. "I love you, _kochanie_."

He pat her cheek and whispered back, "_Kochanie_."

Rebecca sighed and shifted her purse up her shoulder. Not good to dwell too much.

She turned her mind back to the theater. Rebecca took especial pride over their comedy nights. Their big get this year was the premier of the restored _Modern Times._ A local Charlie Chaplin biographer was scheduled to make the introduction.

As Rebecca neared her neighborhood, she ran through her mental checklist. _Advertisers? We're waiting on Greentown Real Estate, but we finally got a yes from the local food co-op. Just gotta make sure their spot isn't over thirty seconds..._

Could Jeannie Janowski have handled this job? Rebecca wasn't sure. She'd like to think Jeannie could have, after a lot of patience and guidance from those around her. After all, that was why Rebecca Brown made it this far. She'd had a lot of direction, but at the end of the day, she was the one in charge. Sure there were missteps along the way, but they were _her_ missteps, _her_ decisions.

For the first time in her life, she felt like a true free agent.

True, there were still times she was lonely. Delia, young and hip, had introduced her to the internet. She slyly mentioned that there was this new thing called online dating.

Rebecca was thinking about it.

She tried to avoid the news. A part of her didn't want to hear anything about him, but a quieter part of her desperately wanted to know if he was - okay.

He'd been keeping a relatively low profile since Batman arrested him that night, over a year ago. He hadn't once looked at her as officers arriving at the scene helped Batman disentangle his arms from around her waist, got him back on his feet and led him to Gordon's police car.

Not a single look back as he and the officers disappeared into the shadows. His head was bowed down low.

She was left alone with the Dark Knight, who quietly escorted her away from the river to the Batmobile.

Sometimes it seemed forever ago. Other times it seemed as if she just reached out, she could touch his shoulder before he faded from view. It was that recent and immediate to her. Sometimes.

Rebecca let herself into her apartment and meowed happily to Joe E. Brown, her striped comrade and housecat. He was lounging near the screen windows to the balcony. Rebecca treasured her view of the beach past surrounding rooftops and evergreens.

But she halted in her stride and slipped quickly into the Blur, then out again, when she saw the large box with the giant purple bow on the dining room table.

Time stopped for a bit.

When she was brought back to earth, she found herself at the table. When she lifted her hand, it was very slow and heavy, as if she were moving underwater.

There was a brief card attached: "_Still thinking about you, kid. - J"._

She shouldn't open it.

But something mad in her grabbed the bow and pulled.

And the screams turned into laughs and then screams again.

But, miraculously, a calm washed over her, and she was able to see in a detached, clinical sort of way, what was before her.

It was hard to recognize him at first glance, what with the clown makeup covering his face and the wig stuck to his scalp.

But there, it was him.

Neil Dugan's face gaped up at her out of a clown's painted red smile. His head just fit into the box.

When the police arrived to inform her that her stepfather had gone missing from his cell in Minnesota, a sad, serene acceptance greeted them as she led them quietly to his remains.

As they went about calling in forensics and backup to tape off the area, she watched from her balcony the calm waves rolling on.

Only Joe E. Brown heard her whisper, "I told you I'm a survivor, baby."

* * *

**A/N**: And that _is _all, folks! Had to add an obvious nod to _Going Sane_ at the end there, seeing as I've been echoing its plot throughout. Hope you all enjoyed! Thank you for reading!


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